ipod switch from PC to iMac

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My Wife has been using here iPod on a Windows PC, which has now died. As we have acquired an iMac G4 (800MHz - 1GB RAM, 17"), I have created a new user account for her on there.

I have managed to import her music from the old PC Hard Drive (which was fine - other hardware issues caused 'death') but we are having other issues now:-

1. it says there isn't enough USB power when we plug in the iPod?

2. it says something about not having authorisation for 38 tunes?

3. it says it isn't Mac formatted and doing a factory restore will wipe out all data?

It is doing some sort of a sync at present but I would really appreciate some guidance on resolving the above please?
 
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It has done the sync but it still has excluded some music/podcasts from being used on the iPod - is this because it needs formatting on the Mac?

Would appreciate some suggestions here please?
 
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iMac 2.66 GHz 20", iPad Mini2 32GB, iPhone6 64GB, Watch Sport 42mm Black, iPad Air 2 128GB
OK, I will have a go.

My guess on the USB problem is that your Mac might only have USB 1, which I think does not have the power to charge the iPod as well as carry data - as well as being slower than USB 2 of course.

The iPod's storage space will have been formatted as a Windows drive. The Mac OS is basically Unix and so is a different format. Macs can read and write to both versions, whilst Windows can only read or write the Windows version. However, the Mac cannot update the iPod's software unless it is formatted in Mac format. If your PC has died then your best option is to reformat the iPod to the Mac format - once you have backed up all of the data of course. This will allow you to update the iPod and makes more sense if you will never need to use it on a Windows machine again.

If you have authorised your Mac to the same Apple ID as the PC, then in theory anything you have bought from Apple iTunes Store should play on both - and thus also on the iPod. Is it possible you and your wife each have an account and some items were bought with one and some with the other? Either way, you are probably not going to be able to play those other tunes - unless you can find some software to unlock them, which even if it exists will not be discussed further on this Forum.

Hope that helps. :)
 
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Hi Nighthawk, many thanks for the reply, was begining to despair of getting any help!

My wife has made all the purchases, I don't have an account. My sons have used the mac and they have bought from itunes - would that cause any problems when my wife is logged onto the mac as a separate user?

As we have all her music and podcasts safe on the windows HD, presumably we can safely re-format the ipod on the mac and then re-import the stuff from the windows HD?

"If you have authorised your Mac to the same Apple ID as the PC" - we have managed to log into itunes using my wife's ID, so I guess that means that part is OK? If so, is it basically the format that is giving the problems?

Thanks again.
 
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I hope someone else will correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think the account you use on the Mac will make any difference. It is the account used in iTunes which does. As long as your wife used the same email address and password when logging in to the iTunes Store on each machine, the music will work on all of them.

If the kids have used a different email address to buy their music, your wife will not be able to play that - which is most likely to be the reason some of the music is not compatible.

If you are sure you have everything backed up, then you should be safe to reformat and update the iPod - as you no longer have a PC. Please double check that backup. There is no going back once you reformat the iPod and Apple will not let you download the music again without paying for it a second time. Good luck.

I have never tried it, but it seems that Senuti might help you to make a backup of your music from the iPod. Try reading this post.


Edit - I just tried Senuti and it looks good so far. Might be worth trying that before you risk the reformat.
 
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Once again - you're the 'lone knight', thanks Nighthawk. I will try Senuti later on the Mac and copy all from the ipod to it. Everything on the windows HD is fine and I can access it on either the mac or another of our windows PC's.

In case you're wondering why we don't just go back to using the ipod/itunes on another PC - it's because, when I loaded Apple software onto the PC, it kept putting .DS_Store files all over the place. It seems to me that Apple software and Windows software do not make good bedfellows on the same PC.

As we have the G4, which isn't used for anything else these days, it seems sensible to use it for my wife's ipod. Incidentally, it wasn't any of our son's music that the ipod couldn't use, it was just a few of my wife's.

I will report back on how we get on.

cheers
 

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