How to keep all my itunes after install of leopard?

Question

Assume I am not all that when it comes to macs. Not new but rusty.
I have tiger with itunes and it has loads of podcasts/albums(rips) etc, and also on my ipod touch. I would like some help as to how do I keep all this after I install leopard. I think I am going for a full install rather than an upgrade.
The mac is an imac with pre-installed tiger. I am sure there is some way of keeping my itunes folder after i wipe the drive but have never done anything beyond fill up ipods with stuff.
I thank you in advance for any pointers.

Answer 1

Hi,
I would suggest backing up your entire iTunes Music folder to an external hard drive or disk if the folder size is practical. To retain your playlists for reimport later on, open iTunes, select the Music Library and choose File->Export Library then save it off system along with the back up.
I recommend using Terminal to back up your iTunes Music folder because Finder's drag and drop can sometimes corrupt copied files, particularly when the directory is large. Suppose you've connected a firewire or usb external hard drive and you can see it mounted on your Desktop, here's what I would do using Terminal (/Applications/Utilities):
Open the directory ~/Music/iTunes/
Open Terminal and type the command scp -r. Now drag in the folder iTunes Music (your copy source). Next drag in the external drive mounted on your Desktop (your copy destination). The Terminal window should now read something similar to this, press Return to start the copy process:
scp -r ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Music /Volumes/External HD
When the process is complete the command prompt will return back to you. If you want to see the copy in progress change scp -r for scp -v -r. The -v makes the process verbose.
I'm with you on choosing a clean install, i choose this method every time for upgrades. Archive and Install presents the possibility of dragging old conflicts back into a clean system.