Hello everyone,

Here is my dilema; I have a windows computer along with my powerbook, and my ipod set to be used with the mac. I have a bunch of music on my pc, that also uses itunes, and would like to get the music onto my ipod. How can I go about doing this? Can I just connect the ipod to the pc and have it sync?


Thanks for your help and time.
Steve

[trpnmonkey41]

If your iPod is formatted for powerbook (when you plug it in does it show an iPod on the desktop or a white hd icon?) then you can't connect it to your PC. If it is PC formatted then you can connect it to download the music but be sure to turn off Autosync otherwise you will lose all of the music that isn't on the iPod

it is formatted for mac....so there is no way to just connect it and get the music from the pc?

[trpnmonkey41]

No. The PC will ask to format the iPod

hhmmmm..thanks for your help....that sucks though. You would think that with everything else cool that apple does that they would have integrated a pc/apple connection "with ease" capability.

[trpnmonkey41]

Well they don't want it to be simple for people to just take other people's music and its also not apples issue. The problem is Windows can't read Mac formatted drives. OS X can read Mac and PC formatted iPods

cool, I understand, thanks for all your help.

[caribiner23]

If you format your iPod for the Mac, it will only be readable on the Mac.

If you format your iPod for Windows, it will be readable on both Mac and PC.

I have both an iBook and an XP machine, with iTunes running on both. Both the iBook and XP can see my iPod, 'cause it's Windows-formatted.

You can use iTunes to get your PC-based music to your iPod-- you just have to reformat your iPod for Windows. You'll have to reload your Mac-based music, but that shouldn't be a huge deal.

Another answer would be to copy the PC-based music to your Mac and import them into your Mac's iTunes app. Then it's all right there.

Good luck!

My setup is the other way around. I just bought a 12" powerbook last night and have iTunes on an XP machine with all my music and my iPod PC formatted.

[Meyvn]

Then you should be good. What I would recommend doing since the music is ALL iTunes-based (and I'm assuming legal), is first turn off Autosync on both computers, then get the PC songs off of the PC, sync with the Mac, download one of those apps to take music back off of your iPod, and put it on the Mac, and then do the same with the ones on the Mac and transfer them to the PC.

Networking; This is how I tranferred my digital tracks from my PC to my Mac. Get a network cable and connect your computers. You don't even need a "crossover cable", your mac can use a regular ethernet cable as a crossover cable between any other computer. Enable file sharing on both computers. Use the Powerbook to establish the network connection. Open iTunes and choose File>Add (NOT import) and then browse to the folder with your music on your PC.

Easy and fast.

I just got mine Last Friday for free! I thought for sure it was a scam until they knocked on my door with it... but same problem...

But no, my mac OS (9.2) is too old, so I'm, loading my extensive Cd collection onto a Windoze XP system. What a freaking chore! I blew my whole 4 day holiday feeding the cd's into iTunes and still have 70 or so to go.

And no, you cannot use the same iPod on both system formats. I knew I was getting the free iPod ahead of time so I tried to start loading CD's onto both my Mac system and the windows system because it takes 20 minutes a pop (the windows laptop doesn't have a USB 2 port and the CD drive's a peripheral). so I had about 50 CD's loaded onto iTunes 2.0.4 on the iMac when I plugged in the iPod to the mac and it didn't even recognise the older version of iTunes, nor could it format the iPod.

I WAS however, able to get a sample program called PCMACLAN at http://ca.miramar.com/ - the free trial gave 168 hours of usage and I transferred the MP3's to the windows 98 machine (running iTunes 4.7.1.30) and from there onto the XP machine with iTunes. (What a hassle. everyone should use macs) but the program is expensive to buy outright, and I have no idea if it can use a web based PC/MAC connection to go from home to work with teh same iPod for example. you could always just plug your external peripheral speakers into the Headphone jack... that's what I do at work...

In terms of loading, can you burn an mP3 disc from one of the machines with your music and then load them over to the Mac Manually???

If I'd of had a CD burner on the iMac I could have burned the MP3's to a disc and imported them that way. but the sony spressa a friend gave me has no driver that I can find online and she doesn't have the original software...

Anyhow our network has about 5 operating systems on it (soon to be 2 windows OS's, 3 mac OS's and one linux! Ahh, children...) so if you wanna mail me maybe we can figure it out for you.

The windows Machine with XP the had no problem once I had the files on the PC network in loading the files into the iTunes.

Eventually I'll get system 10 and have to reformat the iPod back to mac, but I'm hoping at that point our home based server will be a linux machine and make all nice with the various computers. Then I can just get them off the network server after reformatting.