How do I backup an iTunes folder to be restored after re-initializing the hard drive?

[djbeta]

Hi,

I'm trying to help out a friend. She has a system that is relatively screwed up for various reasons.. though her iTunes is working great and her permissions all seem fine.

She has an iBook running Tiger, and has an iTunes folder of approx. 1.9 Gb of music, artwork, etc --- all legitimate music and purchased music.

She doesn't have a DVD burner in the machine, so I wanted to copy her folder over the network to my machine, re-install OS X Tiger, then copy her iTunes stuff back over.. problem is that when I copied the folder, her music files seem to be owned by me on my machine.. so I'm wondering if that will cause problems when I copy it back to her machine?

How can I backup her itunes stuff to my machine so that when I move it back to her machine all will work smoothly ???

thanks,
beta

[djbeta]

Oh wow.. very simple solution... iTunes has a Backup to Disk feature I never knew about. It will backup the entire library to a series of disks.

Any idea whether it will allow me to restore from these disks after I re-initialize the computer and OS ? I will create the same username, etc. on the new OS.. is there any chance of problems or something I should do ?

thx.

[billbaloney]

See here:

To restore backed-up files, insert a backup disc, choose File > "Back Up to Disc," and then click Restore.

You might want to read through the more general help doc for context as well.

There's always a chance of problems, of course, but I've migrated my iTunes library across many machines without problems.