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What is Backstage? Backstage is the easy backup and archiving solution for the digital music library on your iPod. Your music library is valuable- you have likely spent significant time ripping your CD collection to mp3 files. And the music you purchase online has no physical backup copy unless you plan ahead of time to backup the files to a CD or DVD. If your computer breaks or is stolen- imagine the time and expense required to restore your music library once you have lost it.
But you already have a backup copy of your music- on your iPod. Unfortunately Apple's iTunes program moves music in one direction only. You can move your songs from your computer onto your iPod, but not the other direction. If you want to restore the music from your iPod onto another computer, iTunes restricts you from doing so.
Backstage gives you the ability to quickly and easily move music from your iPod onto any Windows XP PC, or Mac running OS X 10.3 or 10.4.
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How can Backstage help me manage my digital music library? Often iPod owners regularly use more than one computer. For instance you might have a desktop Mac at home, but use a Windows laptop while travelling. With Backstage, you can copy your music library from your Mac to your PC (or vice versa) quickly and easily using your iPod. Backstage makes the process intuitive and easy - if you can use iTunes, you can use Backstage. Backstage runs equally well on Macs and PCs - you have the freedom to copy your music library to the computers you use today, as well as those you might use in the future. You get both versions of Backstage for one low price. Do you use a PC today but are thinking of switching to a Mac in the future? With Backstage your investment is preserved.
You should install both the Mac and Windows versions of Backstage on your iPod (you must enable disk use on your iPod prior to doing this) so that it is available in case anything happens to your primary computer, and you need to backup your music library from your iPod to a different computer. Installing Backstage to your iPod means you are prepared in the event you lose access to your primary computer.
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What are the system requirements to run Backstage? The Mac version of Backstage requires Mac OS X 10.3 Panther or 10.4 Tiger. The Windows version of Backstage requires Windows XP and the Java 5.0 runtime available for free here.
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Why doesn't my iPod show up in Backstage when I plug it into my computer? First check if you can see your iPod in the 'Source' list of the iTunes application. If so, then you must simply set your iPod to enable disk use. Enabling disk use on your iPod makes it visible to Backstage. To enable disk use, start up iTunes, select your iPod in the iTunes 'Source' list, then open the Preferences window (from the 'iTunes' menu on the Mac and from the 'Edit' menu on Windows.) Next select the 'iPod' tab and make sure the 'Enable disk use' checkbox is checked. For additional information, please consult help options available under the iTunes 'Help' menu.
Once disk use is enabled, your iPod shows up as an external hard-disk in the Mac Finder or Windows Explorer. You should then install the Mac and Windows versions of Backstage on your iPod so that it is available in case anything happens to your primary computer, and you need to backup your music library to a different computer.
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When I try to backup my iPod to a Windows PC, a dialog says 'iPod Not Readable.' The iPod is at its heart an external hard disk drive or flash drive. As with other external drives, the iPod is formatted using either the Mac HFS+ format, or the Windows NTFS/FAT32 format. The Mac can read all of these formats just fine, but Windows cannot read Mac formatted iPods without first installing third party software. If you get a message stating 'This iPod needs to be formatted for your PC' when you plug it into your PC, then your iPod is formatted with the Mac HFS+ format, which means you must download and install a Windows program that allows it to read Mac formatted disks. One such program is MacDrive 6. A Free trial can be downloaded here. Once you have installed MacDrive 6 on your Windows PC, Backstage will be able to read your Mac-formatted iPod.
The most flexible setup is to format your iPod using the Windows version of the iPod Updater tool from Apple, available here. Then your iPod will be readable by any Mac or Windows PC without needing to install any third-party software. Simply run the iPod Updater software on your iPod using a Windows PC, and select the 'Restore' option to reformat your iPod (make sure you have a backup of your iPod's music and data before doing this, as it will completely erase your iPod.) Once this is completed, your iPod will be readable by both Macs and Windows PCs.
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