My old computer no longer works. I want to transfer my music from my Ipod to itunes on my laptop, but now mix it with my wife's music. How do I do that?

Question

My old Gateway is dead.  I have saved my 20 gigs of ipod music on an external hard drive. 
On our Dell laptop, my wife has itunes music installed.  I want to add my music and use itunes to add more,etc., but I want to keep it separate from her music. 
First, how can I transfer my music from the external hard drive to itunes, without it affecting her itunes.  Do I  need to set up multiple itunes with separate names, or, as support mentioned, make two playlists.
If it's the playlist version, how do I make a playlist with my 20 gigs of ipod music?  Thanks, Hup42

Answer 1

Hey Hup42,
Thanks for the question. Based on the information you have provided, the best option may be to operate multiple user accounts on your Wife’s computer. The following article outlines this solution, along with another solution of having multiple iTunes libraries:
How to use multiple iPhone, iPad, or iPod devices with one computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1495
Create multiple user accounts
Do you share your computer with someone who has different tastes in music and media? You can create separate user accounts for each person who uses the computer. You can maintain separate, personalized iTunes libraries and customize each devices' sync settings accordingly.
Mac OS X users
Learn how to set up other user accounts.
- OS X Mountain Lion v10.8
- OS X Lion v10.7
- Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard
Windows users
Look in your computer's Help documentation to learn how to set up other user accounts. To find this information:
1. Click the Start Menu and click Help or Help and Support.
2. Enter "new user" in the Search field.
3. Press Return.
If you create multiple user accounts on one computer but want the same media to be available in iTunes for all users, you can share music between different accounts on a single computer.
Thanks,
Matt M.