An iTunes Question

[Bill Hunt]

I’ve got a question regarding iTunes. I had it on an older Toshiba laptop, which has now been replaced. I have copied everything in iTunes from the Toshiba, and have it on an external HDD. I’ve installed iTunes on the new laptop, and copied everything over to it. However, there seems to me quite a few songs, that do not come in, or maybe are just not recognized by the new iTunes. Some are purchases from the iTunes Store, and others are CD rips. All played fine on the Toshiba, but now seem to not be in the current iTunes database. I’ve looked around for any “Tools,” etc., in the new iTunes (about 2 versions ago, as I am loathe to just do their updates). Also, both of our iPods are “synced” to the old Toshiba. If I re-sync to the new installation, I am afraid that I will erase the “missing” songs from them.

Is there something that I am missing, regarding the iTunes database? I’ve been to the Apple iTunes forum, but it is generally useless (IMHO), as it’s mostly regarding “pimping” one’s iPod, or along the lines of “my dog ate my iPod and now Apple will not replace it for free... “

Any iTunes experts out there?

Thanks,
Hunt

[Ron]

You should have a main folder where all your music is stored (mine's called 'music' - it could be called something else as I think I named mine manually and moved it to an external drive). Go to "File" >> "Add Folder to Library..." and select that folder and it should rebuild your music library (includes all sub folders as well).

[Bill Hunt]

Thanks Ron,

I *thought* that I had tried that, but maybe I am wrong. Will hook up the external and give it a go, per your insturctions. Personally, I find some of the nomenclature and the groupings of operations a bit odd in iTunes - maybe just an Apple-thing, and I'm an old PC-guy... ?

Will report on what happens next,

Hunt

[George Tyndall]

I have copied everything in iTunes from the Toshiba, and have it on an external HDD. I’ve installed iTunes on the new laptop, and copied everything over to it. However, there seems to me quite a few songs, that do not come in, or maybe are just not recognized by the new iTunes.

Bill, when you click on a song do you sometimes get an exclamation point? (!) If you do, then it means that iTunes cannot find the song. Even if you transferred ALL your songs from the Toshiba to your HDD, if they are in a different location from where they were, then iTunes will not find them.

If you are CERTAIN that you have all your songs on your HDD, and they are all in, say, the iTunes folder, then all you need do is go to File>Add Folder to Library in iTunes, and they should all end up in the program.

If that does not work (be sure to wait at least a minute or two to see if anything happens), here is an alternative procedure: Open both the iTunes program and the folder that contains all your songs, side-by-side, on your desktop. Then do a Select All of the folder of songs and drag the highlighted songs to the iTunes folder. After a minute or two (depending on the number of items in your folder), a scroll bar should appear at the top of the iTunes program that will tell you what is happening.*

BTW, you are smart not to "upgrade" iTunes. My older version 6 will instantly convert mp3's to WMV but a friend tells me that his iTunes "upgrade" will only convert them to AAC.
____
*If you choose the option "Keep iTunes Folder Organized," the program will rename and relocate all your songs into multiple folders (categorized by artist name) inside a folder named "iTunes." That makes finding your songs later for incorporation into your productions VERY easy. If ever you cannot find a song, right-click it in the program and select Get Info to locate it.

[Bill Hunt]

Ron & George,

Thank you for the instructions. Whether I had done the Import, or not, before, everything did come over fine. I had about 900+ dupes to remove, but that took only about 30 mins. and a glass of wine. It *appears* that all is now into my new laptop, and had no problems accessing a few dozen test pieces. I had no "!'s" on anything, so assume that all music is linked between the database and the actual files. Will test more, before I re-sync our two iPods to this machine. My fear was with the re-syncing, I'd loose material that had been transferred to the iPods, from the Toshiba - the system that they are still synced to. I also do the syncing manually, as my wife and I have different tastes in music - she has the full score from Mama Mia and Sleepless in Seattle, plus everything that Celine Dion has ever recorded. I have Mike Oldfield and The Phantom of the Opera. All are on the laptop, just not on both iPods. Will probably do an automatic sync once for each, and just clean out the extras from her's, then the extras from mine. We both still have hours of disk space, so that is not a problem. It's just that on long flights, I do not want to be awakened, when Mama Mia hits in the play-scheme!

You folk have helped me immensely.

Now, I did try to "upgrade" my purchases, and hit a snag. I'd guess that this is possibly because I checked an "upgrade" for something that I had ripped from a personal CD, and not purchased from iTunes. iTunes choked along the way, but I'll carefully study each "upgrade" song, and clear any that I did the rip on. We'll see if that works. Not a biggie, but now that one can get a better version for only about $0.30/ea. I see no reason to stick with the lesser version.

Though I've had the software and hardware for some years now, I still am not conversant with the iTunes' interface. Those wiley Apple folk! Same for QT. I've had it for decades and the Pro version since the beginning, and still find stuff hidden in the most obscure menus. How do Mac people ever find this stuff?

Appreciated,

Hunt

[VernonRobinson]

Bill,
One thing that you may want to try is a program called iGadget from PurpleGhost software. I know the name sounds a little flakey, but it is an independent developer who is filling a niche. iGadget allows you to download the info from your iPod back onto your hard drive. Great for recovering from a hard drive crash or an accidental delete of the hard drive. I have two teenagers and over the years it has proven to be a great save as they cluttered their PC's with spam and the like. I would reformat their drive. Reload windows, and use iGadget to dump their music back onto the PC. Works great.

HTH,
-Vernon

[Bill Hunt]

Vernon,

Excellent! I will go get iGadget immediately. That will allay all of my fears, when re-syncing the iPods. I appreciate the suggestion, as it's just what I want and did not know that it existed.

Hunt

[Chuck Engels]

I just copied all of my iPod's files to an external drive, going to check out iGadget to see if it does something special.