Help backing up music to iTunes?

I recently bought a new computer, and i need to get my music that was originally backed up on my old PC (which I still have) and my iPhone to my new computer so that when I get a new iPhone.

Is the issue that you're not sure how to get the music from one computer to the other, or is it that you were using a proprietary format like Windows Media Audio that will keep you from playing the old songs in iTunes?

If the old computer still works, consider buying a large (in terms of capacity) external hard drive, dragging and dropping the music to it, safely ejecting it, and hooking the drive up to the new computer and dragging and dropping the songs from the external drive to a folder on the new computer. Then you should be able to import the songs to iTunes.

Also consider installing the hard drive from the old computer in the new computer as a secondary drive. You'll need the proper data cable and you'll need a power connection for the old drive.

Or consider an external drive enclosure that will let the old drive act as an external drive. Then you should be able to connect it using a USB port.

If you can connect both computers on the same network, you may be able to use a sharing option, but I'm not very familiar with the procedures specific to this method.

Burning the songs to DVD and letting the new computer read the DVDs may work if you have an internal DVD burner installed in your old computer or if you have an external DVD burner available. The same strategy would work with CDs, but a CD holds about 0.7 of a gigabyte while a single-layer DVD holds about 4.7 gigabytes.

If the issue is that the songs are locked into the Windows Media format or the Real Audio format and the songs refuse to be playable by other media players, I'm not sure precisely how to help you.

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