[ApeironDecay]

Hey, I need to reboot my mac (I want to start from scratch and clean out the cobwebs), but I'm not positive I'll be able to get back all my data. Here's what I did, please tell me if this will work:

I bought a simpletech 160 gig hard drive.
I placed all my music, pics, papers, and garageband songs onto the drive.
I deleted the aforementioned items from my internal drive.

If I reboot my computer, re-install OS X 10.4, can I just plug in my external, go into itunes, and listen to my music the same as before? Will my papers still be there?

I probably should've bought SuperDuper and ran that before I transferred all my data to my external, but I can't see why this wouldn't work. If I'm wrong about this, would someone please advise me about backup-ing and rebooting?

Thanks in advance.

[.Neo]

In order for iTunes to recognize your back-up you'll need to make sure the "iTunes" folder is still there. The default location of it is ~/Music. Once you're doing reinstalling Mac OS X just copy all of your music back to the same location, launch iTunes and all should be fine.

[ApeironDecay]

cool...so I should drag my "itunes folder" from my internal HD to my external? Would that work?

[.Neo]

Originally Posted by ApeironDecay 

cool...so I should drag my "itunes folder" from my internal HD to my external? Would that work?

Yes, along with your actual music files. Afterwards you can copy everything back. Just make sure it's to the exact same location(s).

[ApeironDecay]

exact same location? I don't know what you mean. Do you mean copy my itunes music folder from my external to the itunes music folder in my now-wiped-clean internal?

[adamfishercox]

Just drag it so it replaces the new iTunes folder in your clean install.

[ApeironDecay]

word. thanks guys, I'll let you know how this goes