Need to FDISK computer, want to perserve purchased iTunes music

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SNYP40A1

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 13, 2005
Messages
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I was not sure whether to post this under the OS thread or under the Apple products thread. Since I want to reformat my PC and reinstall Windows, I thought it was more appropriate under this thread, but if I was wrong, mods please feel free to move this thread.

My parents have purchased music off of iTunes and like their music collection the way it is. Unfortunately, the PC has had some spyware / viruses in the past which I think I have removed all active threats, but I think the OS was damaged as it is not fast and my dad complains about AOL being too slow (I have tried to explain why but...). Anyway, there's also a lot of junk installed that no one uses anymore and it would be best to start from ground zero -- FDISK and fresh install. I plan to use Knoppix to split the current single hard disk partition into two and install windows from scratch on the second partition, leaving the current install on its own partition and then moving over needed files after the fresh install. Will this plan work with iTunes music library? Can I simply copy all files from the old partition / old OS install to the new partition / new OS install? Anyone see any problems with what I propose or does anyone have a better idea?
 
SNYP40A1 said:
I was not sure whether to post this under the OS thread or under the Apple products thread. Since I want to reformat my PC and reinstall Windows, I thought it was more appropriate under this thread, but if I was wrong, mods please feel free to move this thread.

My parents have purchased music off of iTunes and like their music collection the way it is. Unfortunately, the PC has had some spyware / viruses in the past which I think I have removed all active threats, but I think the OS was damaged as it is not fast and my dad complains about AOL being too slow (I have tried to explain why but...). Anyway, there's also a lot of junk installed that no one uses anymore and it would be best to start from ground zero -- FDISK and fresh install. I plan to use Knoppix to split the current single hard disk partition into two and install windows from scratch on the second partition, leaving the current install on its own partition and then moving over needed files after the fresh install. Will this plan work with iTunes music library? Can I simply copy all files from the old partition / old OS install to the new partition / new OS install? Anyone see any problems with what I propose or does anyone have a better idea?
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You might want to try downloading a free 30 day Eval of System Mech7,. and use that first. It does a real good job of freeing up a lot of resources, and bringing new life to an older pc. Sometimes on an older install like that, you are better off weeding out the junk, and seeing how it goes first.You didn't say what OS you are using. I can give you 3 letters that's the main problem AOL ;) :D
 
Yeah, I know. The system has plenty of power, for what they use it for. It's a P4 3.2 Ghz w/ 1 Gig of ram, about 120 GB hard disk. When I use it I do not notice much of a problem, except that it takes around 5 minutes to boot up. My dad has a fit whenever he tries to use AOL...he complains that it is slow and often freezes up on him (AOL freezes up, not the computer). To me, I feel like yeah, what did you expect, it's the lowest common denominator of online access of course it's going to be slow. No wonder AOL had to make the service free not too long ago, no one would pay for it. Anyway, they need it for e-mail and to avoid learning more about computers...I am still working on that. I am running WinXP Pro and I reinstalled the OS (not a clean install, a "upgrade" install) a few months ago. Did not seem to do any good. I am more interested in the iTunes question. If I create a new partition / new OS install, can I simply copy over the RIAA infested purchased iTunes music or will reinstalling the OS force me to abandon all purchased music? Some of that stuff was purchased 2 years ago so it's old.
 
just copy all of the songs somewhere else ( to that other partition or drive), reinstall the OS, install iTunes, copy the songs you moved (or just leave them there) and bring them into iTunes. iTunes will then tell you that the songs need to be validated on this machine, so you just log into the itunes store with your user id, and then you authorize this computer and you are good to go.
 
iTunes has a "Backup to Disc" option built-in that will save off your library to CD or DVD...then you can easily use those backups to restore the library on a new install/new machine.

And, in the process, you end up with backup copy you can store for future use.
 
Does that backup include the DRM or do you still need to "validate" them? I like do do a fresh install every so often but every time I have to re-validate and you can only do it so many times .
 
When the reinstall is done, they (meaning whoever uses the 'puter) will have to reinstall iTunes anyway and reauthorize the machine, so yes, the DRM is still going to be there - the songs as they exist presently are tied to that installation of iTunes. When you do the reinstall, it'll chunk off another notch on the 5 times you're allowed to reinstall/authorize a machine leaving 3 - there was the first time, then this time, leaving 3 more chances, etc.

One could always just open a new iTunes account but that would cause all the music purchased under the old account to be useless. There's always ways to transcode the music also, but in that process the quality is going to suffer. Apple's choice to use 128Kbps encoding, even for the efficient AAC format, was questionable to start with. Higher bitrates would have made things a lot better sounding, even 160Kbps is very noticeable especially with AAC encoding.
 
You could try a Repair installation of Windows XP first, that sometimes cleans up problems with slow/under-performing machines and doesn't erase all your files.

But definately give System Mechanic 7 a try, I've been using the suite since version 4 and it's definately kept my computer running at peak performance, haven't had to reinstall windows at all :)
 
I agree with everyone else. Spend a day or so going through and cleaning the computer. Use things like System Mech 7, Windows Defender, AVG Free, CCleaner and the like to get everything off that you can, but do it while in Safe Mode. Once that is done, go through and do a REPAIR install off the WIndows Install CD, not the upgrade the full one as I dont believe the upgrade has that. From there that should still give you the current partition with everything on it. If you are going to try and build a new partition on the drive you will have to use a partitioning software like partition magic, to repartition the current drive. Good Luck and God Speed.
 
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