[THE_SOURCE41]

I am leaving for college in a couple of months and am starting to look at computers for next year. Right now I have Macbook that is almost 3 years old. I have always thought that I was just going to go ahead and get another Mac, but recently I have been doing a lot more computer gaming and think that for college I would enjoy a good PC laptop. My main concern with the transferring over is my music. All of my music is stored on a external WD hard drive and is mostly apple lossless and some downloaded from itunes. My question is how much of a hassle will it be to transfer everything over or would I even be able to just leave my music on my external HD and just plug it into a PC.

Thanks

Sam

 

[_j_]

The process for moving your iTunes library will be similar whether you go for a new Mac or a PC. The only complication that could arise regarding using the WD drive on a PC would be dependent on how it is currently formatted.

If your WD drive is formatted in a 'Mac' format, you may need to temporarily move the files from your WD Drive and reformat it to a more PC friendly format.

If the drive is formatted FAT32 or similar... the process for moving the library is pretty much the same. (In my humble experience... that is.)

If you don't want to use the WD Drive anymore... then the process for moving your library will be about the same as well on a Mac or a PC/Windows machine.

 

[THE_SOURCE41]

Right now it is formatted for a Mac. I would like to keep using the HD because it is very easy to use and keeps my computer HD from being used up for music.

 

[Currawong]

Buy another MacBook and install Windows in Bootcamp. Then, if you regret your decision to use Windows, you wont be stuck.

 

[THE_SOURCE41]

The reason I am changing to a PC is for gaming. I have tried playing games over bootcamp and it just doesn't work very well.

 

[feckn_eejit]

....3 year old macbook will have a rubbish video subsystem...... the new one is considerably better and the pros are awesome.

 

[feh1325]

buy refurbished so you can afford both!

 

[_j_]

Quote:

Originally Posted by THE_SOURCE41 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Right now it is formatted for a Mac. I would like to keep using the HD because it is very easy to use and keeps my computer HD from being used up for music.

Sounds like you would first need to copy the music files from the WD Drive to your Mac hard drive, (use the consolidate library option in iTunes for this ~ first make sure you have the setting checked to let iTunes organize your music folders).

Then confirm that your files are on your local Macbook drive.

Then use Disk Utility to format the WD external drive to FAT32.

Once the reformat of the WD disk is complete, then use the Consolidate Library function in iTunes again to put the music back on the WD external drive.

Once that is all done, you can now go about moving your iTunes Library database files to your PC install of iTunes.

You can then plug in the external WD drive to the PC and point the missing files in the PC iTunes to their locations on the external drive (just click on a track or two). You should be prompted that other files are there as well and then iTunes should rewrite the database files with the correct path.

 

[blessingx]

Yeah there are some limitations to FAT32, but if you plan on moving files back and forth between OSs, it's most often best.

Just out of curiosity what were your problems with gaming and Bootcamp? As I think others are implying, are you sure it was Bootcamp and not the hardware?

 

[THE_SOURCE41]

It could easily have been the hardware since my computer is old. I will try it out on my friends new macbook pro and see if i like it. He does say that he has a problem running windows and that the fan wont turn on.

 

[Currawong]

The other thing is, you could buy an XBox or the like for gaming. I just forced myself to get good at not using a keyboard and mouse in Halo 3.

 

[THE_SOURCE41]

haha I already have one.
I really just want to play css and hl2

 

[rRav3n]

why not kep your macbook, and build a small gaming pc ... gaming on a laptop is poo, and a huge comprimise.

i have macbook for everything, and then a gaming pc under me desk.

gives the best of both worlds and would be alot cheaper to do.

 

[Currawong]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rRav3n /img/forum/go_quote.gif why not kep your macbook, and build a small gaming pc ... gaming on a laptop is poo, and a huge comprimise. i have macbook for everything, and then a gaming pc under me desk. gives the best of both worlds and would be alot cheaper to do.

x2 as well. Also, you will less likely have to worry about your work computer crapping itself the night before an assignment is due.

 

[THE_SOURCE41]

ok that might be a good idea
Thanks.