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iPod I have a... disaster (or at least a big huge mess with my moved library)

T

TraceyS/FL

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jan 11, 2007
4,175
316
North Central Florida
I'm out of space on my laptop.

I wanted to move my iTunes library off and onto a portable drive i have. So i followed the apple instructions of doing the consolidate library and it was going along - but at the end, there was an error. I *thought* it was related to the library move - "THis drive has a problem/error/something (and i didn't take a picture of it) and cannot be used."

And it was done.

SOOO, i figure it failed (you have to understand - i was on the pre-CHristmas overload).

Switched the library BACK to the folder on the laptop - and everything was showing listed in iTunes still - so i'm thinking cool, i'm good. I have zero time to play music until yesterday when trying to put a few songs on the kids Nano's until i could get THEIR library up and running.

No songs can be found.

UGH.

I can manually find them - but well, the thought of doing that for 3500 items when i have 700gb of videos to edit and burn on DVDs by the 5th is daunting.

Have I totally mucked this up? Can i fix it "easily"?

I can call Apple later if i have too.... i have no mental energy for that right now though.

Thanks for any help/hints/whatever..... virtual chocolate??
 
Mmmm, Tracey, so you don't have a backup or anything, I take it?

This is what I personally would do. It's slow, but it's pretty automated and you just have to let it sit and do it.

Those are the pros of this method... the con is that it will probably lose some metadata such as playcount and date added.

1) Make the new library in the destination location, e.g. on the external drive, making sure there's plenty of room. Make sure iTunes is also set to automatically copy all media to the library.

2) Now do a spotlight search of your main hard drive with just the following:

kind:music

This should give you a window with all music media files in it, regardless of location on your HD.

3) Drag them all to the iTunes library icon in the iTunes window. This will take a fairly long time, but it should proceed without requiring your input.

I also would (I hope it doesn't sound like an I told you so ;) ) leave iTunes in the consolidate / copy files to library mode after this is done.

If you have other kinds of media in your iTunes, you'll have to move those over in a similar kind of way (iPhone apps, movies, etc).

You can eat the virtual chocolate while you're waiting. ;)

ghirardelli.jpg
 
Hmmm, so it's already all there "gathered" - the actual structure of the library is fine. It's just the mucked up "library" files i needed huh?

Any chance those are on my mobile me/mac.com backup? do they store those as incremental? I bet i don't have it backing anything up from the iTunes folder. I have a home folder backup from a few weeks ago - but i was out of space on the external it write too so it would run.

I guess going back to that i'd just lose the newest stuff - but i could import that easy enough. i haven't bought much since my life has been consumed by the video school classes i'm recording (and behind on burning DVDs obviously :rolleyes:).

Heck, my stupid button is broken on my iPod again so it's not like i need to sync it either! LOL!!

OK, off to go see what files i have backed up.... probably NOT what i need.

OH, and I do have all my purchases backed up both on my Time Capsule (but i run tiger so no time machine) and DVDs. That is good right? LOL!!

Oh and CHOCOLATE.... thanks :D
 
mkrishnan said:
Oooh, that would certainly be easier, although you'd have to go back and find songs you added in the meantime....
Click to expand...

Wayyyyy easier! LOL!!

It worked, and i printed my purchases out to manually add them (i only bought stuff between now and then - mostly free stuff).

Hopefully i can fix the remaining mess easy enough - and then move it again (but doing a backup of the files first).
 
Back on track!!!!

Now i'm moving 145gb of video files before i can attempt the move again.

Thank you for the kick in the behind on the backup - seriously, i really forgot that backup ran and i might have something. The good news is that once i get all the files moved around i'll have room to have it back running weekly!

Once all this video recording is done in May i'll get my brain back..... i hope....

:D
 
There is some way wonky placement of things in the "new" library, but i'll just have to deal with it until i can figure out how i can move them and not muck it up.
 
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