Mac->Windows reformat, but not losing the music

[rampguy]

My father is in town and has an iPod that I originally set up from him on an old Mac. I put all of his music on there.

Now, he has a PC, which won't recognize the iPod because it's formatted for Windows.

It sounds like my best bet is to:
1. Hook up his iPod to my Mac, and copy all the music over using Senuti or PodView or some other iPod copy tool -- making a backup on a folder on my Mac.
2. Reformat his iPod to Windows (on his Windows laptop).
3. Copy the backup from the Mac to the now-Windows-formatted iPod, using standard Finder drag and copy.

#3 is the one that I'm most worried about, particularly since it comes after #2, involving a complete reformat of everything on the iPod.

Is it as simple as drag and copy? I am very concerned about this because it's not like I can practice this a few times to get it right...

Thanks,

Alex

[DeltaMac]

I would change your step #3
Instead of dragging the music files directly to the ipod (which won't work, BTW - you would then have music files as data stored on the iPod, but the iPod would not play the music) - Install a current Windows version of iTunes on your Dad's PC (a free download from Apple), then import all the backed up music to iTunes on the PC. THEN, sync the (now Windows format) iPod to put the tunes back on that iPod, which will now allow your Dad to put music that HE likes on his own iPod, eh? You can show him how easy the process is, as the Windows iTunes is much the same as on your own Mac....

(Ah, OK, I guess you don't have access to your Dad's PC, right?)
Well, that gives you the idea... :)

Will the backed-up music fit on one DVD?

[rampguy]

Thanks for the quick response!

My Dad is actually here with his laptop.

So I could turn on networking between the two machines, copy everything over iPod->Mac->PC, and then import PC into iTunes, but I'm not quite clear on how the backup from the iPod functions or how I can import into iTunes. Do I need some kind of special program to do that?

I thought that the iPod stores music files (internally) in a bizarre clustering system, so I guess I could do "Add to Library..." from iTunes on Windows and it will figure out all the details from the files?

Thanks,

Alex

I would change your step #3
Instead of dragging the music files directly to the ipod (which won't work, BTW - you would then have music files as data stored on the iPod, but the iPod would not play the music) - Install a current Windows version of iTunes on your Dad's PC (a free download from Apple), then import all the backed up music to iTunes on the PC. THEN, sync the (now Windows format) iPod to put the tunes back on that iPod, which will now allow your Dad to put music that HE likes on his own iPod, eh? You can show him how easy the process is, as the Windows iTunes is much the same as on your own Mac....

(Ah, OK, I guess you don't have access to your Dad's PC, right?)
Well, that gives you the idea... :)

Will the backed-up music fit on one DVD?

[DeltaMac]

You already know about copying the music FROM your iPod with Senuti, or something similar. You can do the same with your Dad's iPod. I really don't know what software to choose to do that on a PC, but you can go to Download.com, and search for 'iPod to iTunes'

When you have your Music files (the songs) retrieved from the iPod, then you can import those songs to a playlist in iTunes on the PC. AND, iTunes has some good help on how to do that. It will be a drag-and-drop into the iTunes music library, using the iTunes window to do that.... Try it out!