iTunes Library backup failure

Discussion in 'Software' started by Elite Jackson, Mar 10, 2010.

  1. Elite Jackson

    Elite Jackson Private E-2

    Hi All,

    I've attempted to restore my iTunes music library from a previous computer and met with utter failure. Hopefully someone here knows the reason and I won't have to re-build my music library all over again.

    I backed up my original hard drive onto a portable drive (HP Pocket Media Drive, Model: PD1600s) and copied absolutely everything. Or so I thought. I did this in April of '08, I think. I believe I was running Version 7.4 of iTunes at the time, but I don't know how to verify that.

    The pocket drive has it's own Roxio software on it that created the backup for me. I followed the instructions and verified that I had copied all the pertinent info over before removing that dying hard drive and replacing it. Perhaps I didn't verify as well as I thought, however, as my iTunes music library is now ominously blank when I view the backup file.

    The location I expected to find the files:

    C: Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music

    Has nothing at all in it that I can see (viewed from the "Backup MyPC" restore window). One folder up, under just "iTunes" there are two files listed:

    iTunes Library.itl 103K Type: iTunes Database File
    iTunes Music Library.xml 84K Type: XML document

    The library seemed far too small to actually be any of my songs (if memory serves I had about 1300 songs in the library), but I fiddled with iTunes a bit and eventually loaded it into the library. I ended up with the WEIRDEST set of crap I've ever seen. I'm pretty sure most of the "songs" are actually sound effects from Battlefield 2142. Some 20+ sound effects with names like "classic_pistol_fire_1".

    And one song. Level 70 Tauren Chieftan's "rogues do it from behind". I honestly have no clue how I came across that song, but who knows what happened back in the wee hours of WoW time?

    I've attempted to search the restore window for a different library of music, but no search function exists. I've been totally unable to locate anything resembling my actual music.

    If anyone has any idea what I can try to hopefully get this music back, I'd love to hear it. Also, I suppose it's important to note that the iPod itself was stolen, hence my desire to restore my music library to my computer.

    Thanks in advance for any advice.
     
  2. bigbazza

    bigbazza R.I.P. 14/12/2011 - Good Onya Geek

    Not sure if I can really help but you might like to check out:

    Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer - The Definitive Guide
    http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/copying-music-from-ipod-to-computer/

    or try a Search on ipod to hard drive.
    You will have to scroll through the Search results to find hits relevant to your problem.

    Bazza

    NB: Thanks for raising your query. It has also helped me track down repair possibilities for my sons' Ipod hard drive. :-D

    Baz
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2010
  3. risk_reversal

    risk_reversal MajorGeek

    The folder containing your actual music files will be in the iTunes folder together with these 2 folders

    If you have saved the iTunes folder from your previous installation/pc then you can just cut and paste it back to the iTunes location. This is what I normally do for my children and it seems to work well enough, although my understanding is that it is not foolproof.

    When you copy everything back a new folder backup Library will be created which can be deleted.

    If for some reason you did not copy the actual music files to your exernal hard disk and no longer have the original pc, then the following works.

    Connect the ipod to the pc and copy all music files (*.mp3, *m4a, etc) from the ipod to the pc. The folder containing the ipod music will be hidden so unhide first.

    Once you have extracted all music files, you will notice that they all are named with 4 characters eg ABCH.mp3. You will then need to download and install MP3Tag which will rename the songs correctly (on the assumption that the ID tags are their).

    MP3tags will remane songs in large blocks at a time. I did about 2,500 songs recently and it took 2/3 mins or so.

    Good Luck
     
  4. Elite Jackson

    Elite Jackson Private E-2

    Thanks for the replies, but as I snuck into the bottom of my first message: my iPod was stolen. Returning the data from there to my computer is not an option, obviously.

    It appears everything EXCEPT the actual songs was carried over by the backup. I did exactly as Risk mentioned, but the result was the weird list of sound effects and one oddball song. I was really hoping the primary music files had simply been located elsewhere during the backup.

    I guess it's time to rebuild the music library, sadly. Thanks anyway for the replies, appreciate the info.
     

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