What should I do BEFORE formatting?

Hi,
I'm about to take the long road of formatting my PC soon (it´s starting to show different signs of unhappines).
I have an iPod Touch and iTunes with ~32GB of music, mostly ripped CD:s (my own, paid for, CD:s. I'm that old ) but also some music bought from iTunes store.
How do I, with the least amount of pain, trouble and effort, restore all of my music to the, after formatting, freshly installed system?
In other words, what do I do before formatting, and after, to make everything as easy as possible.
I've had a crash before and then had a loooong journey (no full back-up = ripping CD:s, downloading covers....etc) back to where I was before the crash.
I would like everything in my iTunes library/iPod to be EXACTLY as it is today (I've rearranged music, changed titles and covers and so on...)
I've tried reading on forums (and in the manuals), but I just get confused. I was about to make a back-up on DVD:s, but if I understand things correctly it's not necessary anymore (your device will work as a back-up nowadays?) Some forums seems to suggests only iTunes-bought media will be recovered, not ripped music.... und so weiter.
So folks, I'm trying to be proactive here and listen to your advice on how to do this in a proper way (if such a thing exists) before I make a mess of everything and have to spend days, possibly weeks, restoring my music after formatting.
Regards
/Mike

You're welcome.
I forgot to describe how you can test the backup...
Click the icon to start iTunes and immediately press and hold down the shift key. Keep holding until asked to choose or create a library. Click choose, then browse to and open <External>\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl. iTunes should open normally and be able to sync your devices as if nothing had changed, but will be referencing the media on the external drive instead of the internal.
tt2

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