umm, the title says it all, but again, i have 16 gigs of music in my itunes library on a mac laptop, and unfortunately, i just found out my mp3 player doesnt work with macs…how can i get it over to a windows comp? (preferably without burning billions of cds)
all help would be appreciated, as fast as possible
buy/get/make a crossover cable. you can then transfer the music from one computer to another at ~100mbps.
don’t you have a network set up at home?
the upstairs and downstairs computers are connected, yeah?
if not, tell steve that i said you need a network set up at home so you can transfer your music easier
Stick with the Mac and get an iPod. 
If you’re sure you want to deal with Windows just to satisfy your MP3 player, see if anyone you know has an external hard drive, that would be the easiest. If no, consider buying one if you need more storage or backup space; they keep getting cheaper and cheaper, and this is one of the best times of year to buy that stuff.
If you have the ability to burn DVDs that wouldn’t be so bad, plus it would make a good backup set.
Another possibility is if you have or know anyone who has some large media cards. Like I have a 2GB compact flash card for my camera. It would take several transfers, but if you have a USB card reader it will work.
I’m not sure if the crossover cable thing will work with a Mack and PC. Macs can read PC-formatted hard disks (FAT32 but not NTFS) but not the other way around.
80GB iPod is only $339 at Costco…
home network and instant message file transfer it to yourself, or external hard drive. you could buy/borrow a large capacity usb thumb type drive. a 2gb isn’t that pricey any more
but would an external drive?
Restart the mac with the T key down, and then use a fire wire cable to connect it to the PC and it will show up as a firewire harddrive.
it does work, if you know what you’re doing…my brother copied a lot of music using a lan crossover cable between his wife’s mac laptop and my wife’s windows laptop. Something about using osx with a unix command line and some wierd network command. in other words, it helps if you’re a computer genius.
Yes, but only if it’s formatted for Windows. If it’s formatted Mac, the Windows machine won’t know what to do with it, and will ask to format it. 
I wasn’t sure if that worked with Mac to PC. I have done it Mac to Mac and it’s a piece of cake! Pretty sure it won’t work with Windows though, for the reason above. Windows can’t read the Mac file system, unless you have additional software to help Windows do that.
Another idea: if you can get it onto a music player, like an iPod, you can then copy it from there to the PC. Only if the files are not DRM’d though. There is software to help you copy files off an iPod, for instance, and it used to be free. Purchased music (with DRM) will be a lot more finicky. If it’s just MP3s ripped from CDs or elsewhere, it should be possible.
right. so can you put files from a mac onto an external drive formatted for windows?
Use the external drive (mac formatted) option and get software called MACDRIVE for your windows PC, that will let you read the mac formatted disk 
Hope I helped a little
If you know someone who has an external drive or an mp3 player that works with mac, ask if you can borrow it. It shouldn’t take too long to move the files that way.
i think the easiest way is to network them together with a network cable, if that dont work boot up a linux iso and that wil work for sure and then just transfer the files and that will mke you very happy…
Or borrow an external hardrive, or make one, there is like an esata firewire and usb box for 3.5" hdd on sale that looks pretty sweet and its only like £15
Or you can just smash the two comptuers together and make them die
sorry the last suggestion is not recommended. I will not be held responsible for any damage you cause to your computers or self or others.
make kyle do it
Yes. I have my Maxtor OneTouch drive set up that way. Works great to plug into either Mac or Windows machines, but cannot be used as a system backup for the Mac due to incompatibilities in file-naming rules. Mac filenames are less restrictive than PC ones.
(rant)
Then there’s my other external HD setup, the Buffalo TeraStation. It’s a NAS (network attached storage) device and works great as such, with one glaring limitation for my use. It runs a variant of Linux and its system is limited to 120-character pathnames. That’s the filename plus the entire path. And 31 or 32 filenames. It took me hours to figure out a system to rename all my photo files to work on there, and my music collection will never be compatible. No, I’m not going to rename 7000+ files with very long filenames. Even if I did, I think the iTunes file structure still uses very long paths. Sorry, can’t recommend that product.
(end rant)
Yeah! Make Kyle do it.
ok kyle—do it…
no, seriously—tyler, i have a network, but the mac/pc connection is kinda shoddy, its hard to figure out
secondly, i do have external hardrives, i actually thought of that like 2 minutes after i made the thread, ive just yet to try plugging in (i hadnt thought of the compatibility factor though)
ps (haha, just for you kyle) thanks for all the help, ill try using an external drive when i get around to it