I had itunes installed on my pc's hard drive C:. My itunes library is stored on an external drive E: My C: drive recently failed so i've replaced it and reinstalled iTunes to the new drive. In ITunes i've selected 'File, Add Folder To Library' and selected my iTunes library from E: All of my music has imported into iTunes successfully but my album covers and the play counts have not. Are these files kept on my E: drive, and if so is there a way of importing this information ? Thanks in advance for any advise.
Reinstalled iTunes on new hard drive - have lost cover artwork and number of plays etc
- Thread starter stevee1966
- Start date
manicm
Well-known member
It's a long shot - but on your E drive copy all folders under the topmost iTunes folder. May do the trick.
Messiah
Well-known member
I have to ask, have you clicked on 'Get Album Artwork'?
I had to do this when I had re-installed windows on my laptop. It got most of my artwork back but I still had to add a lot of it manually.
I had to do this when I had re-installed windows on my laptop. It got most of my artwork back but I still had to add a lot of it manually.
I'm not sure how this works but i seem to have most of my album artwork back now.
When i originally installed iTunes (on my previous, now broken disk), i selected 'Get Album Artwork' and some were downloaded but most of my albums needed to be done manually.
Now on my reinstalled iTunes, some of my previously manually installed artwork was displayed in my iTunes library, but the majority of it was not. I've just selected 'Get Album Artwork' and now nearly all of the artwork which i previously had to manually install has downloaded, as if my iTunes Store account has remembered what albums i had in my library.
I would say i've now got around 90-95% of my album covers in my library.
Still no 'Plays' stats though (which isn't so important). Do you think when i next connect my ipod (which i've not done yet as i didn't want to do this until i got my album artwork sorted) that my 'plays' stats will synch from the ipod to my iTunes library ?
Only one way to find out i suppose !!!
When i originally installed iTunes (on my previous, now broken disk), i selected 'Get Album Artwork' and some were downloaded but most of my albums needed to be done manually.
Now on my reinstalled iTunes, some of my previously manually installed artwork was displayed in my iTunes library, but the majority of it was not. I've just selected 'Get Album Artwork' and now nearly all of the artwork which i previously had to manually install has downloaded, as if my iTunes Store account has remembered what albums i had in my library.
I would say i've now got around 90-95% of my album covers in my library.
Still no 'Plays' stats though (which isn't so important). Do you think when i next connect my ipod (which i've not done yet as i didn't want to do this until i got my album artwork sorted) that my 'plays' stats will synch from the ipod to my iTunes library ?
Only one way to find out i suppose !!!
Great that it wasn't the other way around! I have had a similar problem in the past & even if you have your library on an external drive, the artwork & itunes database info, including playlists & play count etc are still stored on the C drive.
The specific file is an .xml file that if you make a copy of from time to time you can import this back into ITunes if your local drive fails & you wont have to drag your music back into itunes from your external drive. Also make a copy of the album art folder & paste back into itunes folder on the C drive.
This is also handy if you are moving a large Itunes library to another machine or even operating system as both windows/mac itunes use the xml file (in the newest version of itunes)
Cheers
The specific file is an .xml file that if you make a copy of from time to time you can import this back into ITunes if your local drive fails & you wont have to drag your music back into itunes from your external drive. Also make a copy of the album art folder & paste back into itunes folder on the C drive.
This is also handy if you are moving a large Itunes library to another machine or even operating system as both windows/mac itunes use the xml file (in the newest version of itunes)
Cheers
manicm:It's a long shot - but on your E drive copy all folders under the topmost iTunes folder. May do the trick.
Not sure why it works this way, but even though my iTunes is configured for "iTunes Media File Location" being set to my external drive (E
, the actual iTunes Library.xml file is located under "My DocumentsMy MusiciTunes" on my internal hard drive (C.
Therefore unless i can get the old disk to boot (highly unlikely) it seems that my old 'plays' info, and playlists etc cannot be retrieved.
Not sure why it works this way, but even though my iTunes is configured for "iTunes Media File Location" being set to my external drive (E
, the actual iTunes Library.xml file is located under "My DocumentsMy MusiciTunes" on my internal hard drive (C.Therefore unless i can get the old disk to boot (highly unlikely) it seems that my old 'plays' info, and playlists etc cannot be retrieved.
I can hardly blame Apple for my pc's hard disk failing can i? I've got all of my songs backed up to an external drive so it was just a case of re-installing iTunes and reimporting my library which was all done in in less than an hour for 8,000 songs. All i've lost is my 'how many times have i played that song counter' so it's not too bad really.
For years i owned a Ceative Zen Sleek mp3 and didn't think i'd ever go over to ipods, but i've owned a 160gb Classic for 4 months or so and love it.
For years i owned a Ceative Zen Sleek mp3 and didn't think i'd ever go over to ipods, but i've owned a 160gb Classic for 4 months or so and love it.
rjb70stoke
Well-known member
Ha Ha, "The crApple dream". Read the first post, it's his PC's Hard Drive, that has failed, not his iPod.
Anyway, the way to back up itunes is locate your iTunes folder, whether on PC or Mac, and back up the entire folder, not just the "iTunes Music" folder. Then when you wish to restore, simply copy back into the same place or hold shift while opening iTunes, which allows you to choose a library. Choose your backup and its as if you'd never replaced your hard drive.
Anyway, the way to back up itunes is locate your iTunes folder, whether on PC or Mac, and back up the entire folder, not just the "iTunes Music" folder. Then when you wish to restore, simply copy back into the same place or hold shift while opening iTunes, which allows you to choose a library. Choose your backup and its as if you'd never replaced your hard drive.
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