How can i transfer my iTunes ratings and playlists to another computer?

If you're reformatting your computer do you really need to reformat your external hard drive also? You can copy all the program files from your itunes now onto your external HDD. I think that should work. Once you get everything up and running again just paste the files back onto your computer's HDD.

Ratings and playlists are stored in your 'itunes library.itl' file inside the iTunes Library folder. If you keep the full structure of

'C:\Documents and Settings\\My Documents\My Music\iTunes' and copy it to a new PC, you should be fine. If you store music inside My Music as well as in iTunes, drop the \iTunes on the end and copy that whole folder.

In vista, you'll find the folder in C:\Users\\Music, and on a mac /Users//Music.

If you've purchased music from the iTunes Music Store, don't forget to deauthorise your computer first from inside iTunes, in the 'Store' menu.

You need to keep that same structure for music, and keep filenames the same for this to work though, as it will try also keep the locations the same. If you're copying from mac -> pc, pc -> mac or xp -> vista you should also be fine - recent versions of iTunes are clever enough to know what you're doing, and will reindex the library with the correct file structure.

Yeah...he explained it literally.. :) nice job