I've run out of space on my computer's hard drive. How can I clear up?

Question

I need to remove a few gig of data on my laptop. But I don't want anything to be deleted from my iPOD.
I called the local Apple store, where the CSR said, "if you delete a tv show that you bought from iTunes you will be able to download it again at a later date."
Tested that out with an old episode of Lost. But now the episode is lost because when I tried to download again, I got the message that you 1) can't download again but 2) can burn to CD/DVD. Only that second option failed for me when I tried to burn copies of 30 Rock: I was told I did have a license to make a backup.
The CSR asked if she could research the issue and then hung up rather than put me on hold.
So I called again and got India instead of the local store. He said I could manually sync the iPOD and that would give me the control I needed.
Plugged in the iPOD, unselected "Sync music" from the appropriate tab. And iTunes warned: if you do this, we will delete every playlist and song on your iPod. So the EXACT opposite of what I want.
Possibly the only factual information I got from the second rep was that he would charge me $29.99 to answer the question.
So I'm hoping someone on the forum knows how to do this.
I'd be fantastically disappoitned if Apple has not given us a way to do this, epecially since their license/subscription model is what's kept me from backing up to CD anyway.
Thanks
Scott

Answer 1

*unselected "Sync music" from the appropriate tab. And iTunes warned: if you do this, we will delete every playlist and song on your iPod*
To change to manually managing an iPod you don't "unselect" sync music, you "select" manually manage songs and videos. If you want to delete songs from iTunes and keep them on the iPod you need to change the update option of your iPod by checking the box beside "manually manage songs and videos" in the Summary tab and clicking Apply. Your iPod will not sync with iTunes in this mode so it can have different content, you can get details here:
Managing content manually on iPod
iPod 101: Fill 'er Up
One major word of caution. If you delete songs or videos from your computer and have no back up other than the iPod you will risk losing them permanently if your iPod fails or you find you have to restore it to solve a problem. You should consider investing in an additional internal or external hard drive to store/back up your music. Alternatively at the very least back up anything you can't replace such as iTunes downloads to CD or DVD: How to back up your media in iTunes
Something else to be aware of when using an iPod in manual mode is that the "Do Not Disconnect" message will remain on the display until you physically eject the device. In that case use Safely Remove Hardware icon in the Windows system tray on your desktop or check this link: Safely Disconnect IPod
I don't have any TV shows so I can't speak from experience here but looking at the TV tab it appears you can only sync shows, there's no manually manage option. Syncing would require that you keep the shows on your computer otherwise they would be removed from the iPod the next time you syncronised with iTunes.