Mac/PC/iTunes/iPod question

[dramaqueen]

I recently realized (while listening to the Disneyland podcasts) that when we bought a router to share our DSL connection, we inadvertantly newtorked our PC and our G4. I can now see some of his music on my iTunes and he can see all of mine! When I first bought the iPod, I wanted to comsolodate all of our music, but gave up because it took too long to burn 3000 songs onto CD's from my PC and load them onto his Mac. Now that we can see/play the shared music in iTunes, is there any way to copy the shared music folder into his library so that it can be loaded to the iPod? (which is formatted for Mac) I have seen some ways of doing this online, but none of them have worked. Any suggestions?

[testtrack321]

Try establishing file sharing on the PC and drag and drop. Unfortunatly, you can't do it in iTunes, and well, I'm not an expert in PC -> Mac connections.

Might I suggest formating the iPod to windows, dropping all the songs onto the iPod, then onto the Mac, add them, then reformat the iPod to Mac? Mac can read PC formatted drives.

[dramaqueen]

I know the computers can, but from what I understand, the iPod cannot do both at once- I have been trying to figure out how to do this for months and it has just been a dead end. I seems so easy, but I think I have to get the computers to relaize they are connected to each other in order for it to work. I basically have to set the mac up to file share with the PC and I don't know if this is possible.

iTunes automatically fileshares, but you cannot move the files you can only see them. Its so confusing!

[Adventurer]

Windows won't mount an HFS+ volume, I don't believe, so instead of starting up the Mac in Target Disk mode for the PC, you have to see if there is a way to start up the PC in Target Disk mode for the mac. Once the PC volume were to mount on the desktop of the Mac, it's as simple as drag and drop. Oh, but your PC would also need a firewire connection.

[disneyguy247]

Take all your music files from your actual hard drive and drag and drop to your ipod on "my computer". Then in the mac you should be able to upload the files directly from the ipod's file. I've done this with my friends from school and it works beautifully. (Make sure to set iTunes to manual update)

[yensid98]

^ agreed. I've done this myself with no problems. Quick, easy and exactly the results you want. Drag and drop.

[dramaqueen]

ok, does this work when the ipod is not connected to the PC, but all the music you want to get on it is on the PC?

[MickeyMania]

No, the iPod has to be connected to the PC for it to appear as a hard drive.

Here's my solution if you can't do that: PCs do have the ability to view Mac hard drives over a network and if you log onto it with your Mac's user name and password, you have all the powers that user does, including copying files to the drive.

In your Mac, go to System Preferences and open Sharing, and turn on Windows Sharing.

Go to your PC and view your available networks and eventually the Mac should appear, if not, there's more work to be done but I think that they should be able to talk if iTunes sharing works.

Basically, connect to the Mac volume on the PC and enter your Mac username/password to access your whole Mac hard drive, and copy the files to it.

Just remember to turn off Windows Sharing when all is done.

[dramaqueen]

cool- that definitely sounds like something that might work.

Thanks guys! I will let you know!

[figment1986]

Dang.. this si confusing.. but interesting.. (I wonder could i get my PC at school to sneak into the school's network and fix a few problems in the computer next to it whihc is on the server...)

[dramaqueen]

just in case you were curious, I found an application that makes this possible: OurTunes- it works very well. Thanks for all your suggestions, I figured I would let you know if I was able to do it- yay! Now I can free up 12.5 GB's on my hard drive