New PC build & iTunes Library Copy Issues

-=Rob=-

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Hope some can help because I've run out of ideas! I have built a new PC and have copied the entire iTunes folder form the old PC to the new one. I have also moved the location of the library to another drive as my OS drive was getting full.

I have downloaded iTunes10 onto the new PC and changed the folder location of the itunes library. However I do not see any music at all in iTunes. It looks like its never seen anything.

Now, my old PC had an older version of iTunes on it and the folder structure looks different. Is this a problem? Anyone know what's up?

Thanks...
 
Folder>Add to Library?

I'm not sure thats the right way to do it to be honest, but who knows! Usually I copy the library and hey presto, the difference this time is I have a newer iTunes than on the old PC and the folder structure seems different, wondering if this is the reason it is not being recognised...
 
-=Rob=- said:
I'm not sure thats the right way to do it to be honest, but who knows! Usually I copy the library and hey presto, the difference this time is I have a newer iTunes than on the old PC and the folder structure seems different, wondering if this is the reason it is not being recognised...

Edit>Preferences>then change "location" of folder?
 
Edit>Preferences>then change "location" of folder?

Done that and had no joy, found a topic on the apple support forum and it mentioned this and to use organize folders, but still no good... :(
 
Explained here

iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Media folder

It seems previous versions of itunes named the libraries differently - don't you just love Apple

Thanks for the link:

I head a read of that page earlier actually, however that is angled at people wanting to move the itunes library from one place to another on the assumption that itunes was working ok in the first place. My scenario is different as I have re-built my PC and installed itunes fresh, now the library I have copied from my old pC will no longer be recognised by iTunes even in the default location, so I cant do the move bits and pieces…
 
As previously stated: Use iTunes Preferences to point your iTunes Media Folder to the location of the folder holding your media. Then use the FILE Menu option: ADD FOLDER TO LIBRARY to rebuild your LIBRARY.XML and ITL files. Until you do this, iTunes will not be able to locate your media.

Note "iTunes Media Folder" is where your physical media is.
"iTunes Library" holds the ITL and XML files Database files, and should normally reside in your default MUSIC folder.
 
Last edited:
Right, had a fiddle with this last night:

I de-installed iTunes, copied my iTunes folder to the default location \users\music\iTunes and installed iTunes. This instantly loaded with my music library and playlists - Great! So next I ran the apple support page on moving my iTunes library to another folder using this support page:
Apple - iTunes - Inside iTunes - How to Move Your iTunes Library to Another Hard Drive

That appeared to work and I exited and re-started iTunes to make sure all was fine. I then did the last step of deleting my original iTunes folder, lowe and behold on my next start of iTunes it was blank nothing ggrrrrr...

So I gave up at that point and will try againtonight, however in doing this iTunes has doe someting weird with my iTunes folder. The copy it made when I did the organise library has made the folder double in size from 20GB to just over 40GB. So now I am also stuck with a double sized library as I deleted my old one!

Any ideas appreciated as this apple software is doing my head in! Also, any recommendations on some undelete software to get my original iTunes folder back would be good :)

Cheers...
 
Ditch iTunes - it is rubbish to start with and will never get any better until they re-write it - had that from an Apple employee, and go with something that will give you a lot less grief. Lots of choice out there - Foobar, winamp, JRiver MC etc. and you can use them to access your old i-tunes library - though not sure what has happened re the size. Has it created a mirror of your files? You need to look into the library and see why there is an increase in size. It may have just duplicated every track. If you deleted your original library you should find it in the recycle bin.

If you are running idevices then try Copytrans Free iTunes alternative - Manage iPod iPhone without iTunes
 
Ditch iTunes - it is rubbish to start with and will never get any better until they re-write it - had that from an Apple employee, and go with something that will give you a lot less grief. Lots of choice out there - Foobar, winamp, JRiver MC etc. and you can use them to access your old i-tunes library - though not sure what has happened re the size. Has it created a mirror of your files? You need to look into the library and see why there is an increase in size. It may have just duplicated every track. If you deleted your original library you should find it in the recycle bin.

If you are running idevices then try Copytrans Free iTunes alternative - Manage iPod iPhone without iTunes

Thanks for the quick reply - yes I really dont like iTnes, but wasnt sure I have an alternative using an iPhone and iPad? Will look at your link thanks. Going to do some digging tonight because it certainly looks like it's duplicated but not obvious how. I gave up at 1am this morning so a fresh head later will help!

I wish it was in the recycle bin, unfortunately windows said it was too big to recycle and it's just deleted it :facepalm:
 
Uninstall iTunes, move all your content back to the default location, then install iTunes again. If at start up it doesn't find your library contents, quit it, and start up holding the SHIFT key. This will give you a dialogue box asking you where to choose a library from. Point it at your default location with all your media in it, and it should find the xml file to load up the library.

Once you have the library all working, you can do the move library function. Once that's done, just use it like that! There's no reason to delete the default folders - all the content is managed and stored elsewhere, but iTunes still uses the default location of it's library data - deleting it was your problem. So long as the folder in the preferences is the same as the new location you've chosen to have your media stored in, then iTunes will always use this new location to write new media too (ie, new apps, new movies and music downloaded from iTunes, along with new movies and music you've dragged into iTunes (provided the "copy to iTunes media folder when adding to library" is ticked) or music ripped from CD's in iTunes)

That's how I've been running mine for years - all media content stored on a NAS drive, and the default location in preferences set to that same folder. There is still an iTunes folder on the local drive, and since it uses such tiny file sizes, it's really not worth deleting it and having problems.

iTunes, despite what people say, is actually quite clever and it does know how to operate itself. Just let it
 
iTunes is certainly not clever - bloated, out of date, poor implementation on windows - yes; and they are the comments I got from a corporate Apple person
 
Thanks guys...

Matt - The instructions from apple say to delete to old location once copied, if they are wrong then thats poor! However on the same token, why would you want to move it to another location without deleting the old files? For example I was doing this to create some space on my small'ish SSD O/S drive as I don't have stacks of space, seems pretty pointless having to have two copes in existence! Or did you mean leave the folder strcuture there on the C: drive and empty the contents (based on your tiny file sizes reference)?
 
iTunes is certainly not clever - bloated, out of date, poor implementation on windows - yes; and they are the comments I got from a corporate Apple person

Oh well in THAT case it must be true! The "corporate Apple guy" said it! :eek:

Thanks guys...

Matt - The instructions from apple say to delete to old location once copied, if they are wrong then thats poor! However on the same token, why would you want to move it to another location without deleting the old files? For example I was doing this to create some space on my small'ish SSD O/S drive as I don't have stacks of space, seems pretty pointless having to have two copes in existence! Or did you mean leave the folder strcuture there on the C: drive and empty the contents (based on your tiny file sizes reference)?

Maybe it's different on a Mac than a PC, but when I did the move, it actually moved the contents from one location to another - not copied; there wasn't any media (such as movies and music, or apps) left in the original location. Just a few empty folders and some library files
 
Oh well in THAT case it must be true! The "corporate Apple guy" said it! :eek:

No its true because I have tried i-Tunes and it really is crap and it is not allowed any where near my PC. Certainly not my music after it decided to lose half of it and re-catalogue the rest into something completely unrecognisable. Apple HQ corporate employees privately saying what I have found to be true is the final nail in its coffin as far as I am concerned.

And there there is the problems the OP is having...............................says it all really.:facepalm:
 
If you check your metadata you will probably find that to blame. ;-)
 
Just an idea guys, can I install iTunes fresh with nothing in it, then connect up my iPhone and populate back that way? All the music I want is on my iPhone and this way I can ditch the knackered library and start again...
 
You can't move music back in that way with iTunes. There are some third party tools out there if you Google the topic.
 
No its true because I have tried i-Tunes and it really is crap and it is not allowed any where near my PC. Certainly not my music after it decided to lose half of it and re-catalogue the rest into something completely unrecognisable. Apple HQ corporate employees privately saying what I have found to be true is the final nail in its coffin as far as I am concerned.

And there there is the problems the OP is having...............................says it all really.:facepalm:

Oh it's true because YOU'VE tried iTunes? Care to name your Apple HQ Corporate employee's as sources?

As for losing your music and/or re-cataloguing the rest into something unrecognisable - you're obviously doing it wrong.

Tell me, please, if iTunes is so crap, and it's crapness is the reason the OP is having these problems, why is it that I, along with millions of others, haven't had these problems, nor had iTunes lose half their music or re-catalogue it into something unrecognisable?

Granted iTunes doesn't run as smoothly on a PC than it does on a Mac - although in fairness, it IS an Apple application, not a Windows one; the Windows iTunes program is just a port, but it's never lost any of my music, or re-catalogued it. Even moving music over 3 Windows PC's and a Mac, with 2 iPods and 3 iPhones, it's never lost anything or re-catalogued anything.

Sounds to me like you don't know how to use iTunes and are blaming it for that. Bit like blaming the car for having a crash when you don't know how to drive

Just an idea guys, can I install iTunes fresh with nothing in it, then connect up my iPhone and populate back that way? All the music I want is on my iPhone and this way I can ditch the knackered library and start again...

As said, no you can't. The reason behind this is anti-piracy; if you could do that, as you can with media library applications on other platforms, then there'd be nothing stopping me from coming to your house and depositing my music from my iPod onto your computer into iTunes - meaning you'd end up with thousands and thousands of songs you didn't purchase, beit via iTunes, other online download store or from CD rip.

However, that's not to say you cannot retrieve the music from your iPhone and use that music to populate iTunes. If you are on Windows, you can use SHAREPOD to back up the music, playlist and videos from your iPhone to your computer, then populate the iTunes library. Then upon syncing your iPhone, it will erase the iPhone's media contents, but of course all that media will be present in your iTunes library and be synced to the device. I agree, it's a convoluted way of doing it, but it works.

If you are on Mac, then iRip is the way to go. It's a paid app, but a very good one.
 
i also dont know what the hate is with itunes. although i agree that i does run alot better on my mac than my pc i still dont hate it.

its an easy to use program which keeps all my music organised in the same place.

ive moved between 2 pc's, split a library into 2 (wifes music and mine) and copied over to 2 macbooks and then when wife sold her macbook re-transferred any new stuff back to the computer and haven't lost a single song.
 
Right, I'm getting there on this one now and am learning how iTunes works and is set up using MS Windows! It appears that the issue has been caused by my itunes library.itl file getting corrupted somehow (suspect on multple copies / recycle bin entry and restore) when I was moving things around. I didn't realise that even though you move the iTunes library you still have default config files on the c:\ drive in the usual place (\\users\my music\iTunes). I had deleted this but when realising you needed it restored it and then things started going wrong! So I have found a backup of the itl file in one of the folders and restored this and now my playlists and libraries are showing! (Albeit a bit out of date)

There has been a bit of confusion with my devices having apps that iTunes doesnt expect, I guess because the backup of the itl file is out of date, but I am working on that now. For some reason when iTunes asks if I want to sync my apps on my iphone back to the PC it doesnt seem to complete, I still need to work that one out but I suspect caused by the corrupted itl file.

I also have heaps of duplicates in iTunes now as well, probably as a result of the move folder / consolodate and organise. I will need to spend some time fixing this to bring the size down.

So getting there but not done yet! I am a novice with iTunes but very used to microsoft products, so this has been a good learning curve!
 

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