Ipod novice and uploading CDs/keeping music already on Ipod?

[Aworryingtrend]

Hi all

This is my first post on here as I am a complete Luddite! We have just bought an Ipod Touch from a friend. It has lots of music on it already, and we would like to keep this if possible, but someone has told me that if I set up an itunes account on my computer, it will wipe all the stuff already ont here? is that correct and is there any way to avoid it?

Also, we would like to upload our CDs to it. DH thought we can do this using windows media player but it wouldnt seem to let us to do this (could be we are just doing it wrong though), or do we need to use ITunes to upload the CDs to the Ipod? Again would this mean we would lose music already on it?

Any advice welcome, as you can proably tell I am clueless at all things technical...

Yes you will lose the music on the ipod when you sync it because your computer will not be authorised to your friend's iTunes account so you don't have a right to use it.

It is possible to avoid it if you Google it as a question and find the instructions on one of the geeky forums but it's quite complicated as you have to make your PC see the iPod as a removeable drive and then find the hidden files. The file names are gobbledygook too so it's not easy.

You need to download a copy of itunes onto your PC then rip the CDs with itunes as the default player. Anything that's already on the PC can be added to the itunes library by clicking on 'Add file to library' in the 'File' menu on the top left and then finding the relevant files in My Music.