Backing up music and cd covers

[S. Moussly]

I am considering of formating and repartioninig my hard drive. I have a
question in regards to the music on my ipod. I have around 20GB of music
now. I assume that non of the cd covers are transfered to my iPod. If I
would like to backup all my music (with cd covers and tags), should i format
my ipod and add my music as a music folder, then add the music folder back
to my hard drive once i am done with the fresh install, would that work?

In addition, I have noticed that some of the music that I have deleted from
my iTunes library are no longer on my iPod. How can I keep those tracks on
my iPod? And how can I delete specific tracks/albums on my iPod?

Finally, I noticed that my iPod tends to be slow switching between albums.
In addition to a lag when I want to fast forward a live set (a 1 hour single
track). Not sure if this is an issue on all iPods or only in the 30GBs.


Sam