My AC/DC collection is gone from my PC

Restore these files from your regualr backup of important files.

Or reimport them from your CDs.

I want an answer ASAP

And I want ten million dollars and world peace. 😉

Just FYI, we're all just your fellow users here, helping out as we have time, knowledge and inclination, so we don't own you an answer "ASAP" or at all. So while I understand your frustration, I'd recommend that you be a bit less demanding if you want anyone to take their time to try and help you.

Have you magically acquired an AC or AC_DC folder by any chance? A / can't be used in file & folder names. Are you letting iTunes manage your iTunes Music folder (personally I don't) and if so have you checked on the location you have set for your library. Did the mp3's have tags? Did you just install iTunes or has it been working OK for you until your files started to vanish? Are they showing up in iTunes as missing items i.e. with exclamaition points? Have you used the Windows search tool to scan your computer for *.mp3 files?

tt2

Sadly, if they are gone, they are gone.

what about all the rare bootleg material I had, witch I've spent years to collect

Hopefully, since you are upset/angered that you lost important files, you will now make sure to backup regularly and not rely on a single device (hard drive) which will fail at some point.

You keep telling everyone that there answer was not helpful or comforting.

Do you want the answer? Or do you want to be comforted?

Let's try a different angle.

Everything is going to be O.K.

Is that more comforting?

2re wrote:
Patrick.
Imagine for a second it was your collection that was deleted.

OK imagining it now... yep, I then restored it from one of my several backups. A fool and his un-backed up irreplaceable library are soon parted.

I'm 43 and I've collected music all my life.

Ya, same here, well 42 actually. But I am not sure what that has to do with anything.

Your post was not very helpful. It did not give me any sort of comfort or make me feel better about this what so ever.

It was meant as a little AC/DC related joke. But clearly I failed to take into account your current state of mind and therefore, maybe a bad time for such a joke. Next time I will throw in a Michael Jackson joke instead.
Hopefully you can resolve the issues, but sounds like none of us here are going to be much help if something has happened to your library and you do not have some sort of back up. Do you have an iPod by any chance and if so is everything on that?
Patrick

+I had my iPhone stuffed with AC/DC and swapped albums back and forth but never all albums at one time.+
+So if iTunes messed up a sync it should not have deleted everything.+


I don't understand what you were doing when all of this disappeared, and why you think iTunes did it, but I would check into some of that software that tries to recover files. Meanwhile, the less you do with your hard drive, the better chance of recovery.

2re wrote:
A bad Windows install wiped a backup partition I had on a single drive 10 years ago.

So you should know that a single backup isn't necessarily sufficent for data it would hurt to lose. No backup at all should not have been an option.

I've managed to transfer all personal files, music, films, e-mail and more onto new HD since 2001. So I'm not ready yet, to keep duplicates of all my media files. Just the vital personal files.

I presume you invested energy in ripping your CD's, organising your library etc. Any hard drive can fail at any time - you might get a warning, as perhaps you've had now, or you may not. If it matters, back it up!

What I'd like to know is how can song nr 3-5-7-8-14 etc in several albums be gone.

I don't know either, perhaps you've turned off most of iTunes warning messages and deleted stuff from the main Music source when you thought you were dealing with a playlist.

Perhaps it was after I updated iTunes and my iPhone?
I don't know. But I know I wont trust iTunes with my media anymore.

I don't let it organise my files but mainly because I object to it truncating filenames on aesthetic grounds.

Moving on... You'll need to find some undelete software - chances are most of the missing files are still on your hard drive, just no longer in the active file structure. Given it's an external drive stop using it until you've exhausted your options for recovery. I've recently used Seagate's File Recovery for Windows on a friend's system which managed to recover the bulk of the data from a partially reformated hard drive. Prices range from $40 to $100's but many such tools are offered in "free to download and test" mode so at least you can check that they can find your missing files before you pay.

There are also tools to transfer files from iPod/iPhone to your computer which might be relevant if some of the missing tracks are still on your phone.

Best of luck,

tt2

It did not give me any sort of comfort or make me feel better about this what so ever.

And your original post was snippy and rude and wouldn't be likely to make anyone want to comfort you or make you feel better. Demanding an answer right away, when everyone here is a volunteer and owes you not one second of their time, isn't a good way to start out.

Just for future reference should you have additional questions: it pays to be polite and friendly, especially when you're asking for help from people who have no obligation whatsoever to help you. Normally the people who post here are very friendly and helpful. but if you are rude and pushy from the outset, don't be surprised if people are equally rude in return (though most of us try to resist reacting, we're all human and sometimes our buttons get pushed) or just ignore your issue altogether.