itunes backup question may have a virus

[Zman]

Hello.

Supernewbie here. last posted several months ago and have been loving the death out of my ipod. No problems either! :D

But now I think I may have picked up a virus. A bit about that before my Itunes question: All I notice is that my dsl modem is way active even when not using the internet. Have looked at the 'status' of the connection and 'packets' are going out like gangbusters, even though I am not doing anything.

Have tried a couple adware/spyware busters and several virus detetectors and no success in finding the problem. So now I am faced with either wiping my HD clean and reformatting or taking the computer in to have it looked at ( and I suppose they may just do that too).

So, my itunes/windows questions:

1) I have about 2700 songs/11.3gb of songs in itunes, mostly my own cds, and have not backed up my song files. ya, I know I should have. and fully realize that now...so no need for the lecture. :)

So, before I or others go wiping things out, and risk losing all my itunes files. how do I best back them up? I do not have a dvd burner, so either I need to back them up on a external hd or a friend suggests that I buy a second internal hd and back them up to that hd.

Any thoughts on those choices or other suggestions?

2) I have also wondered about the programs like ephpod? Am I correct in my understanding that they can pull the files off my Ipod and repopulate itunes?

and if I use a program like that, can I still use itunes to managed my ipod and my digital musical files?

Well, thanks in advance for your time and any suggestions.

And if you have any suggestions on finding/eradicating my problem, they would be welcome, although I am unsure if this forum is the proper place for that.

Zman

[Matrixsjd]

yah it's known as getting a mac lol (no viruses)

[VDozier]

We had our music on C: and it got corrupted and we lost it all. Soon other programs stopped working so we reformated the HD.

Now,I keep all my music on D: so if C: gets messed up my music should be ok.

I do not have a dvd burner nor a external HDD so I keep the music I can't afford to lose on my ipod (even if I am not listening to it at that time) I also burn the essential music to cd-r's. I guess just back up the really,really important stuff to your ipod and/or cd-r's so that in a disaster you don't lose it all at least.

I think there are programs that will tell you everything you have running and what it is doing. You just might have some programs that are communicating needlessly and that is why you get the activity on your firewall but can't find any virus or spyware.

I use ad-aware,spybot,EZAV,McAfee firewall and an online scan from trend-micro. I too get periods of excessive activity but it doesn't mean that something evil is going on.