text: do i need to do anything with itunes on a computer that won't boot windows, and gets a fresh xp install? daughter of a friend has crashed her laptop and windows is not recoverable. i can however still access the hard drive. she has itunes and songs on the drive. if i reinstall windows what effect will that have on the itunes installation?   will i need to do anything extra? i understand that i'll need to authorize the new install, but i though i'd read somewhere about backup of itunes stuff, but i can't find it now. if you can access the drive just copy the whole itunes folder and when you do a fresh install replace the folder whence it came (just take note of whre it was located) always best to do a format and a completely clean install otherwise you may just inherit the problem that caused the crash in the first place