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Peter Griffin

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 10, 2005
219
0
I have a windows formatted iPod but I have now switched over to Mac. I would like to know how I can set my iPod to recognize my Mac iTunes as it's main music library. I can't update my songs on the Mac, only PC since, I'm guessing, it's PC formatted. How do I undo this and have my Mac be the sole computer for the ipod?

Thanks in advance
 
Peter Griffin said:
I have a windows formatted iPod but I have now switched over to Mac. I would like to know how I can set my iPod to recognize my Mac iTunes as it's main music library. I can't update my songs on the Mac, only PC since, I'm guessing, it's PC formatted. How do I undo this and have my Mac be the sole computer for the ipod?

Thanks in advance

Hopefully, you still have your PC where all your iTunes should be. If that is the case then all you have to do is somehow move all those files(MP3,AAC,AIFF,AUDIOBOOKS) into your new Mac.
You can do that several ways. One is burn them on CDs, DVDs, second would be to move them over to an external(FAT32) hard drive. This includes your iPod, you can use the iPod in disk mode and use it as an external HD.
Another way would be to network your PC and Mac and transfer them over the Network.
Should be simple!!! If you have the music from the PC.
 
MacAficionado said:
Hopefully, you still have your PC where all your iTunes should be. If that is the case then all you have to do is somehow move all those files(MP3,AAC,AIFF,AUDIOBOOKS) into your new Mac.
You can do that several ways. One is burn them on CDs, DVDs, second would be to move them over to an external(FAT32) hard drive. This includes your iPod, you can use the iPod in disk mode and use it as an external HD.
Another way would be to network your PC and Mac and transfer them over the Network.
Should be simple!!! If you have the music from the PC.


I already have all my music on my Mac. I just need it to allow my iPod to be updated. Whenever I choose the "Update Ipod" option nothing happens.
 
You don't have to do this, but to change the iPod to Mac formatting, simply Restore it from the iPod Updater software. This will erase everything on your iPod though, and it will no longer work on PCs.
 
mad jew said:
You don't have to do this, but to change the iPod to Mac formatting, simply Restore it from the iPod Updater software. This will erase everything on your iPod though, and it will no longer work on PCs.

I don't necessarily want to change my pc formatted ipod to mac UNLESS it's required to do so if I want to regularly update my ipod using my Mac. So I guess my question is, is restoring the iPod back to factory settings the only way to go about having my PC iPod update through Mac?
 
Peter Griffin said:
So I guess my question is, is restoring the iPod back to factory settings the only way to go about having my PC iPod update through Mac?


Nope. When you first plugged the iPod into the Mac, iTunes would have asked if you wanted to use this library to update unless you had physically copied your old library across from the PC, including the playlist/data files, in which case it will act as if nothing has changed and update like it always did on the PC, but on the Mac instead.

If you had not let it update at initial plug in, then you should still be able to update it by manually selecting Update iPod from the File menu.

You don't need to change formatting, however any updates will have to be carried out on the PC. In these instances, you'll be asked if you want to reassociate the updates with this PC and it's iTunes library, select no. :)
 
Peter Griffin said:
I don't necessarily want to change my pc formatted ipod to mac UNLESS it's required to do so if I want to regularly update my ipod using my Mac. So I guess my question is, is restoring the iPod back to factory settings the only way to go about having my PC iPod update through Mac?

Yes, if you want to update iPod with your new Mac, you have to reformat.
 
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