Transfering files from old hard drive to new one

[Brother John]

Our family computer died and a good friend and elder at our church built us a new one (he is an IT guy). He has the old harddrive attached so that I can transfer what I want to keep. Has anyone done this before? I have a large mp3 collection that was on my itunes but I am not sure how to transfer it? Do I need to reinstall itunes off the net and then let it find the mp3s or do I somehow transfer the old itunes program and files? I downloaded picasa last night and this morning it was done finding my pictures but it ended up with 2700, with many pictures multiple times? Are these pictures now on my new harddrive or will they disapper when I unplug the old harddrive? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[Daniel Haley]

You should copy the files from your old hard drive to the same location on your new hard drive if possible, e.g. 'My Music' folder on the old drive to 'My Music' folder on the new one. Once you download iTunes have it search for all music/movie files on your computer and it will import them into your iTunes library.
Did you copy the pictures from the old hard drive to the new one already? The reason I ask is because it sounds like Picasa imported pictures from both drives which resulted in duplicates. If you need more help just PM me.

Daniel (IT Guy)

 

[tcalbrecht]

Why not just leave the old drive attached and access the files from it?

 

[TheDow]

I have never had to deal with iTunes specifically, but I've read that you have to de-authorize the old computer, and authorize the new computer before iTunes will let you play your music files again. (Unless you specifically bought your tunes DRM-Free from iTunes. In that case, it should be a simple matter of opening the old drive, which should show up in My Computer, open up your My Music directory, and drag and drop.)

One of the reasons I'm not a fan of iTunes is because they technically control what music you're able to listen to with Digital Rights Management. If iTunes determines your subscription is not valid, either from a computer move, or whatever, they can limit access to your music. I recall that iTunes was switching their collections over to DRM Free, but that last I'd heard, they were charging more, and you had the option to go DRM for cheaper or DRM free for a little more.

I prefer Amazon's mp3 store, myself.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

You should copy the files from your old hard drive to the same location on your new hard drive if possible, e.g. 'My Music' folder on the old drive to 'My Music' folder on the new one. Once you download iTunes have it search for all music/movie files on your computer and it will import them into your iTunes library.
Did you copy the pictures from the old hard drive to the new one already? The reason I ask is because it sounds like Picasa imported pictures from both drives which resulted in duplicates. If you need more help just PM me.

Daniel (IT Guy)

That's generally correct. It really depends upon what OS the original machine was running and what OS the new machine is running.

In Windows XP, you generally had user folders like this:
My Documents: c:\Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents
My Pictures: c:\Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents\My Pictures
My Music: c:\Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents\My Music

Under Windows Vista and 7 the file structure changed to:
My Documents: c:\Users\Username\Documents
My Pictures: c:\Users\Username\Pictures
My Music: c:\Users\Username\Music

Copy the contents of the appropriate folders into the new folder structure in total. iTunes places all your MP3's as well as your playlists within the Music folder so when you copy it over you'll have all your stuff saved there.

Reinstall iTunes and then Authorize the new computer for your account. If it's reached the max of 5 then reset your activation (you can do this once per year).

 

[Brother John]

Thanks guys