03-08-2007, 12:16 AM

I have roughly 1700 songs on my G5 and i want to move those songs to my new macbook laptop, but i dont want to make 4930590423 cds, so is there any device i can use to hook the comps together and transfer the music directly through a fire wire or something of the sort like a usb cord?

any help offered is great, thanks

03-08-2007, 12:34 AM

Here ya go you can uses firewire using target disk mode.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583

03-26-2007, 11:07 AM

^^^
thanks for that link. I have a follow-up question.

once I've got all this set up, do I just open my iTunes folder on my G5 and select all the music folders in there (they all appear to be sorted by artist name) and drag and drop into the iTunes application window on my MacBook? or do I have to open up each artist folder separately and select the actual mp3's to drag and drop?

03-26-2007, 12:05 PM

I think all you have to do is start in Target Disk mode, like Screwball6986 pointed out, and through the new Mac, launch iTunes and click on File -> Import... (or Command + Shift + o. Then you could navigate to your older Mac and grab the iTunes Music folder in your user account.

I haven't done this myself but can't see why it wouldn't work.

03-26-2007, 12:18 PM

Actaully, all you need to do is drag over the entire iTunes folder, library and all, make sure there isn't a current library there, if there is delete it. Once everything is transfered, open iTunes, and all your music should be there.

03-26-2007, 12:20 PM

Why not just transfer them via an external hard drive? MUCH simpler, no? AND you get a backup of the music at the same time.

03-26-2007, 12:24 PM

Well (you mean drag and drop, mac57?) if you did that, wouldn't you need to import in iTunes anyway so iTunes recognizes the tunes and puts them in the Music Library? Otherwise iTunes won't see them even if they are there, I don't think.

03-26-2007, 01:53 PM

If your music files are separate from iTunes like mine are, drag the music files from computer to the other and put them in the same place so the iTunes pathway to the music is the same. Then replace the new iTunes folder with the one from the old machine. Maybe you could do this, anyway.

I run System 9 and OS X, so I don't keep the music in either iTunes folder (some files that aren't mp3s cause problems or won't play in System 9, and I don't want a bunch of duplicates).

03-26-2007, 03:08 PM

Well MHC, when I moved from a PC to a Mac (and surely you can do the same thing, Mac to Mac) I simply copied my entire PC iTunes folder tree to an external hard drive (yup, drag n drop), then moved that drive over to my Mac. I then deleted the existing iTunes folder tree on Mac and copied the one on the external hard drive into the same place. I then started up iTunes on the Mac and it "saw" all the music, playlists and so on. I believe it did rescan the full library (it clearly realized that the world had shifted under its feet) but after that, all was well.

03-26-2007, 03:18 PM

Well that's cool!

I had manually dragged and dropped tunes in the iTunes folder and iTunes refused to see them. Someone had told me I had to let iTunes make the link itself by doing the Import... thingy. But surely this was in an older version of iTunes, by the looks of it.

03-26-2007, 05:26 PM

thanks everybody.