2 ipods, 2 PCs, 1 Mac: The Saga

Factual Questions
1

My girlfriend and I bought eachother 5th generation video iPods for Christmas. At the time, we each had our own Windoze laptops. We installed iTunes for Windoze, formatted the iPods for Windoze, mourned the loss of not being able to transfer what we’d previously purchased via MusicMatch, ripped a metric assload of our cds, and all was right with the world for the most part.

My girlfriend’s laptop has been very fickle since having the motherboard replaced last summer after an unfortunate encounter with a bottle of gatoraid. Once it was determined that the motherboard would have to be replaced again, we started down the inevitable road of justifying the purchase of a brand new MacBook Pro.

Now we have a dilemma. I’ve got 700 or so songs previously held on my laptop, purchased on iTunes, or ripped from cd…on my Windoze iPod. She (being much more industrious than I) has about 4000 or so songs previously held on her laptop, purchased on iTunes, or ripped from cd…on her Windoze iPod.

She’s had the MacBook for almost a week. For the first few days there was no observable difference when plugging her Windoze iPod into the new Mac. iTunes and the iPod behaved as they had on Windoze. Then she was prompted to install an iTunes update. She did so, and now the iPod functionality previously enjoyed is no longer. She can add new songs from iTunes to the iPod icon on her desktop, but the iPod does not show up within iTunes anymore, she cannot tweak her previous playlists anymore, and she keeps getting prompted to reset her iPod to factory setting (ie wipe out the 4000 songs on it).

We have an external dvd burner for the PC laptops. The MacBook has a DVDr/w drive. I’ve downloaded and successfully used Ephpod on my laptop, and can use it to pull songs from my iPod back into my iTunes library.

From what I can tell, the fastest way from where we are, to having all of our 4500 or so collective unique songs on both iPods, one formatted for Windoze and one for Mac…is to consolidate our combined music onto my laptop with Ephpod. I can load my iPod from there at my whim. Then we can burn dvds with her copies so that she can import the dvds once she’s reset her iPod.

Is that the best way to handle our dilemma?

I leave us, again, in the teeming millions capable hands.

2

Check for an iPod update using Software Update on her MacBook.

Or, maybe a restart of the iPod could do it. Her iPod documentation will tell how to do a reboot.

But actually, if you’re lloking to just have the same songs on both iPods, just turn off the syncing feature on your ITunes preferences. Then you can hook either iPod up to both computers, and load them as you will.

Otherwise, she could try taking her iPod and MacBook to the nearest Apple store to get some help from the Genius there.

3

Keep in miind that your music bought on iTunes can only legally exist on a certain number of devices (5, I think). Please know that if you lose them, iTunes will not allow you to re-download them for free. This is not fair, but as I can sadly attest, that’s the way it is. Personally, I would take the computers and the iPods to an Apple Store. A genius will do your upgrading and backing up in a way that you won’t lose all your music. You can even make an appointment.