My iMac Might Be Cooked - What About my Phone and Nano?

It is Easter evening and I doubt that I can talk to Apple Care tonight so I am waiting until tomorrow, but I am worried that my iMac may have bitten the dust. It won't finish booting up.

My iMac will be three years old on April 28th and will be out of Apple Care at that point. I have no objection to purchasing a new one. It's due for replacement, but I want to wait for the refresh that is certain to be coming within the next three months, the sooner the better.

I'm not in too bad shape because I have a Time Machine backup and also an off site Crash Plan backup. Plus my most important files are in Dropbox.

Because I have a two year old Macbook (which I am using to type this post) I am not forced to buy immediately. It was always my plan to replace both the Macbook and the iMac immediately after a refresh. What I didn't consider, however, until now is that my iPhone and my Nano are synced only with my iMac. So if I wait three months to purchase a new iMac and restore my data from my Time Machine backup I won't be able to sync my iPhone or my Nano because they aren't associated with my Macbook iTunes.

I guess my question is this. Can I sync these items with the Macbook? If yes, will all the items from the iPhone and Nano automatically populate the Macbook iTunes library when I do. I realize that even if this is possible it will only recover the items that were actually synced to one of these two devices. There were items, notably audio books, that were synced to neither device. They can be recovered later of course.

If I can't sync with the Macbook I just don't like the idea of not being able to sync my devices for up to three months, yet I can't see buying a new iMac when a refresh is so obviously close on the horizon.

When I talk with Apple Care tomorrow I will probably find out more.

In the mean time does anyone have any suggestions for articles I should read?

Thanks in advance.

Terri

Senuti is one of many products that can transfer your library in the opposite direction - from your iPod/iPhone back to your computer. I'm not sure what would happen with your apps (I'm guessing they will copy back once iTunes realizes that they aren't on the computer), but it should take care of your music at the very least.

Hope that helps.

Thanks.

I will take a look at this.

Terri

go to cnet and under the downloads tab download expod. The same thing happend to me and i used that program and was able to get my photos,videos and music off of my nanos and classic.

Have you tried zapping the PRAM prior to contacting Applecare.

Reboot and after chimes hold down Command, Option, P and R all at the same time and keep held down until after the third lot of chimes, release and hopefully the iMac will reboot.