Recent Switcher needs help moving files i.e. itunes

Hello All,

I recently purchased a Macbook and now want to transfer some files (most importantly my itunes) from my old eMachines pc to my Macbook. I also have purchased a WD Passport 320GB hard drive. It is both Windows and Mac compatible however comes formatted in NTFS. My understanding from what I have read is that I should possibly format it to FAT32 if I will be using it on both a pc and a Mac. So my first question is should I format the drive to FAT32?

My major confusion at this point is trying to transfer my itunes and library of music. HELP!! Here is what I have done so far:

I connected my WD Passport to my pc and did not install the WD Smartware software onto the pc. I simply used it like a USB flash drive and copied my itunes + library from the pc to the drive following the instructions from this link:

How Do I Move My iTunes Library from PC to Mac and Keep My Settings Intact :: My First Mac - Help Buying and Getting Started with Your New Mac

I then connected the drive to my Macbook and this time I installed the WD Smartware software and then copied my itunes + library from the drive to the Mac. Then I launched itunes while holding down the option key so i would get the display message asking me to create or choose library. i selected to choose the library I had copied over. The library appeared in the itunes program but each song had a "!" next to it, when I tried to play a song I received a message stating "could not locate file".

I then downloaded the CopyTrans Tuneswift software suite onto my pc, as I have heard great things about the ease of use to move itunes. If I use CopyTrans to move my itunes via the WD hard drive should I format the drive to FAT32 first? And if I don't need to format it in FAT32 is there a way to delete the bad itunes + library that is currently on my drive? I realize that if I format the drive will be erased so this will no longer be of concern.

A few people have also suggested using the Homesharing option on the latest version of itunes. If I use Homesharing does it actually copy the itunes + library onto the Mac or do the files still only reside on the pc? I am wondering in case I ever decide to get rid of the pc or it crashes which we all know pc's are famous for doing.

Even if I were to use Homesharing I would still like to backup my files onto the WD Passport drive.

I am enjoying my new Macbook but would really love to be able to enjoy my music and photos on it as well. If anyone can offer some help I would greatly appreciate it.

Ok so here's my take on this, forgive me if I don't get everything correct, but it's a start...


First off, congradulations on the Mac. I've worked on enough eMachines to know their quality, and that's a BIG step-up from an eMachine to your first Macbook..good choice!


Firstly, when I transfered my own music Library over I simply just copied the folder with all the music, put it on my external, pluged it into my mac, opened itunes, and dragged all the music straight into iTunes and iTunes did all of the work for me in terms of loading it in.

The whole "transfering your library" to me seems pointless and confusing.

2) Before you do any transfering with the portable at this point, make sure it is formatted as NTFS because I believe(sorry if im wrong) that Mac can only read but not write on NTFS, which is all you need at the moment.


3) Homesharing simply "shares" your music but doesn't actually copy it over. The point of that is if you want to listen to your music on another computer in your house, without actually USING that computer..then you can use Homesharing.




After all of this is said and done, I suggest using the portable as your dedicated Time Machine in case something were to happen to your files.






Sorry if I didn't answer everything fully, but it's a start!

First of all, Macs can read NTFS disks, but cannot write to them. You do not need to reformat the drive to FAT32. If you plan on transferring data back and forth between the Mac and the PC, then you might want to consider it. However, for what you want to do, there is no need to reformat.

Second, how did you copy the files to your Mac? Did you select the files in the Finder and drag and drop them into the Mac hard drive? When you go into iTunes, select a song, right click on it, and select Get Info. In the summary tab, you should see a section called Where that will give you the location of the file. See if you can't figure out where the actual file is being stored and whether it is where iTunes thinks it is.

Quite honestly, I think Home Sharing would be the easiest way to do this. Just turn it on on both computers, and have it sync everything over to the new Mac. Presto! It's done.

ThePope43 said:

3) Homesharing simply "shares" your music but doesn't actually copy it over. The point of that is if you want to listen to your music on another computer in your house, without actually USING that computer..then you can use Homesharing.

Click to expand...

Not correct. If you set up Home Sharing, you will create a local copy of the song (or movie or podcast or app) onto both computers. That's the whole point of it. You're thinking of the old Shared Libraries thing, which allowed you to see and play content from another computer, but not make a local copy of it. Home Sharing allows you to easily keep libraries on more than one computer in sync.

Have a look at this support article on Apple.com for more information on how it works. iTunes: Understanding Home Sharing

lol well that makes much more sense. I'm going to be setting that up on my girlfriends touchsmart tomorrow since that thing is a complete waste of a computer

I have a couple more questions after reading the replies.

@ThePope43,

Thanks for the kudos on the purchase. It's one I wish I would have made from the start!

If I leave the drive as NTFS which you say then is only readable from the Mac not writable then will the drive be able to serve a backup for me? Doesn't it have to be able to write to the drive to backup the files? Also can you explain to me the whole Time Machine concept. It's a bit foreign to me since we didn't have such a thing back in the Apple IIe days.

@J.Fo

When I copied the files I copied the itunes Music folder and the itunes library.xml file onto the drive. I then copied them from my drive into the into the itunes folder using Finder. Unfortunately out of frustration I erased the items from the itunes folder after I tried copying them a couple times and failed, so I am not able to check the file path as it was after I copied them to the Mac.

I would just leave the drive at NTFS right now until you get everything transfered over.

Once you choose, on your mac, to set the drive up as a Time Machine it will do all of the formatting to prepare itself so you do not have to.