Finding songs on hard drive for Itunes library

Question

Finding songs on hard drive for Itunes library

Hello,

Recently I had to do a system restore on my computer and my Itunes library was lost. I went back to my old computer and copied my Itunes folder and brought it back to my new computer that I did the systems restore on. That brought up my Itunes library, but I'm missing about 1000 songs (since I've acquired about that many since I got a new computer). My songs are all stored on an external hard drive. My question is this: Can Itunes go into a hard drive and find which songs aren't in the library and add them automatically? Or, do I have to go in and find each song on my hard drive that isn't already in my library and manually add it?

I know that I could just take my entire hard drive and put that into my Itunes library, however, I've spent such a long time organizing my Itunes after each song gets into the library. If I just take the songs from my hard drive again, the songs will show up without Artist, or have other labeling problems that I'll have to fix again. That'd take forever cause I'm dealing with about 300 GB of music.

If Itunes could go into the external and just find the songs that aren't already added to the Itunes library, that'd be ideal. Any way of making this happen?

Thanks for your time and help

Posted on Nov 11, 2006 12:23 PM

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Answer 1

Nov 12, 2006 7:11 AM in response to daniel Shriver

bump. still haven't figured it out.

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Answer 2

Nov 12, 2006 11:36 AM in response to daniel Shriver

_

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Answer 3

Nov 12, 2006 12:11 PM in response to daniel Shriver

Hi Daniel.
I need you to tell me one thing about your music files. Do the files that have been copied to your new computer from the old one have the same name with their duplicates in the external hard disk (I'm talking about Windows filenames here, not mp3 tags)? If the filenames are the same, is the folder structure of your music library and the backup on the external hard disk the same as well? Please let me know and I'll do my best to help you out.
Constantine

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Answer 4

Nov 18, 2006 9:38 AM in response to Constantine Panagopoulos

Constantine,
Thanks for your time.
To answer your question: The actual music files haven't been moved from one computer to another. They have remained on my external hard drive, with the same names. I just plugged in the external hard drive to my new computer. Nothing has been changed on the external hard drive, so the folders, etc. are the same as well.

Thanks again,
dan

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Answer 5

Nov 20, 2006 4:00 PM in response to daniel Shriver

-

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Answer 6

Nov 25, 2006 2:49 AM in response to daniel Shriver

Hi Dan.
Sorry for taking so long to answer back. Something's wrong with my settings and the site doesn't send me an alert when I get a response. In case this happens again, let me know at 'oddccp@yahoo.gr'. I'm determined to help you out because I also have a huge music collection (180 GB) and have faced several problems in the past. Fortunately all's running smoothly at the moment.
Now, you say all your music is on the external hard disk. This is good news because it means that you DON'T have several versions of your music files (not the library file) with slight differences in their tagging. What you actually copied from your old pc to the new one was the library file, right? And the 1,000 new songs are all on the external hard disk as well? If this is the case, I think that by choosing 'file/add folder to library' the new songs will be added to your library without problems. But because we're dealing with such a large music collection, I'd go about it in a slightly different way. I would empty my library completely and start from scratch as if the songs were all new. I still do this whenever I have problems caused by the size of my music collection. There is one drawback to this method however: the 'date added' field will have the same date for all your files and if you have smart playlists that take into account that info, they will treat all your files as added on the same day.
One piece of advice though, before you go about experimenting with your files. Go out and buy a second external hard disk, same size with the one you already have. Copy everything that's on the first HD to the new one - you need a full backup of your hard disk.
Does any of this make any sense? Please excuse my poor English - it's not my native language. Let me know.
Regards.
Constantine

Windows XP Pro

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Answer 7

Nov 25, 2006 8:12 PM in response to Constantine Panagopoulos

Constantine,

Thanks again for your time.

The only problem that I have with deleting all of the songs from my current library and re-adding them to Itunes is that when they come to Itunes from my hard drive, they won't be organized on Itunes like I have them now. Meaning: many of the songs come into Itunes without Artist labels, or Album labels, which I have taken a lot of time to fix in my current Itunes library. I'd just hate to have to re-organize all of these files in Itunes over a missing 1000 songs or so.

For this reason I was hoping Itunes could search a hard drive for mp3's that aren't already added to the library. This way I could keep my current organized library- and have Itunes only add the new songs that weren't already accounted for.

Concerning the advice you gave me about hard drives: I filled up a 300GB external, and recently purchased another 300GB external. I took 1/2 (based on music type) and put it on the other new hard drive. So, I really don't have the music backed up at all as of now. Is it common for hard drives to crash and lose info?

Thanks!

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Answer 8

Nov 26, 2006 10:28 AM in response to daniel Shriver

On the contrary Dan. All the tag info you've added in iTunes (artist, album, comments, everything) is info added to the mp3 file itself, not the file's entry in iTunes. If you open an mp3 file that has been manipulated in iTunes with another program (media player, winamp, etc), you'll see the correct info there as well. The iTunes library file holds just the information about the location of each mp3 file and of course all your playlists. I understand that you're reluctant to follow any-one's advice since any mistake would result in the loss of many hours of your personal work in trying to organize your music collection. So what I suggest is that you do a test without any risk whatsoever. Attach your external hard disk to another pc (a friend's or relative's pc) with iTunes installed but without music files. Run iTunes on that pc and create a new music library by importing all your files from the external hard disk. If I'm right, the new library will contain all your songs (the 1,000 included) and the tag info will be correct (at least on those songs that you've worked on). Try this and let me know what happens.
As to the necessity of a full backup, well let me just say that it's better to be safe than sorry. Over the years I've seen many hard disk crashes but also problems induced by the users themselves (I've seen a hard disk in a fish tank, honestly!) or others (mainly theft). So do yourself a favor and BACKUP EVERYTHING.
Let me know what happens. Now that I've answered your first post, I feel somewhat responsible for the outcome of this affair.
Regards.
Constantine

Windows XP Pro

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Answer 9

Nov 27, 2006 7:27 PM in response to Constantine Panagopoulos

Hey Thanks a lot!
I wasn't aware that changing Artist name, Song name, etc. in Itunes changed the tag of the mp3 itself. I'll take your word for it.
I understand that backing up your hard drive is a good idea. I guess I'm reluctant to keep purchasing these 300GB hard drives because they aren't all that cheap, but when you consider the amount of $ and time I have in my music, I guess it's a worthy investment!

I guess what I'll do is delete my entire Itunes library, and then add my entire external hard drive to the new Itunes library, and hopefully my songs will be organized like they are now.

Thanks again for all the time you've spent helping me out with this problem. Much appreciated!

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Answer 10

Nov 28, 2006 2:36 AM in response to daniel Shriver

One last word of caution Dan. Although iTunes is only a front end and does not contain the actual files, it nevertheless has the ability to access the hard disk and DELETE FILES. When you select a song (or in your case all songs) and hit the delete button, iTunes will ask you if you really want to remove those songs from the library. To this question you of course answer yes but if your songs are stored in the iTunes music folder, the program will also ask you if you want to remove the song from the hard disk as well!!! No need for me to tell you what to answer there. So please read very carefully all the messages from iTunes and proceed with caution during this whole operation.
Let me know how it goes.
Constantine

Windows XP Pro

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Answer 11

Nov 28, 2006 6:20 PM in response to Constantine Panagopoulos

I went ahead and deleted the songs from the library prior to reading your last message. Fortunately I did read everything before pushing any buttons and didn't delete the songs from my hard drive. I went ahead and dragged my entire external hard drive back to Itunes and it's just finishing up converting a few files from wma format into mp3 format. So far everything looks great, as far as the artist and song titles.

A word of caution for anyone else doing the same thing as I've done, though. Your song ratings will be lost. Not a huge deal for me, but if you place a lot of emphasis on song ratings, this might not be a good option for you because all my ratings (stars) are gone. Otherwise everything seems to be good!

Constantine- thanks once again for your help!

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Answer 12

Nov 29, 2006 2:40 AM in response to daniel Shriver

My pleasure Dan. Sorry about the ratings though and thanks for letting me know.
Best wishes.
Constantine

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Answer 13

Sep 8, 2009 6:23 PM in response to daniel Shriver

fixed

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