Damaged iTunes library

[Sillybro]

This has happened before so I periodically back-up my .itl file. My backup seems to be damaged too.

200 gb of music mostly from my CD collection and downloads. 50,000 songs. Lot's of custom metadata seemingly gone.

Does anyone make a more reliable alternative to iTunes? It doesn't have to work with my iPods and iPhone. I just need a more profession database for my whole music library that I keep on a separate drive.

Or is there anyway to restore my damaged library? It's particularly maddening when iTunes automatically creates a new and empty library.

Thanks

[cjmnews]

The alternatives are not as good as iTunes, but you can find them out there like Media Monkey.

You can script daily backups to a day folder, that would give you 7 backups to choose from.

If you recently upgraded iTunes, there is another backup of your library in the iTunes\Previous iTunes Libraries folder. Choose the one with the most recent date. Copy it to the iTunes folder. Delete the current iTunes Library.itl file and remove the date off of the one you just copied.

That should get you your library as of that date. Then you just have to locate and re-add your tracks that you added since that date. They are in your folders, you just need to find them. Your best bet is to search on date with Windows Search, then drag and drop them into iTunes.

[Sillybro]

Thank you for your suggestion.

OS X 10.7.1 iTunes 10.4.1

Very disappointing. This will be the third time this year to rebuild the library.

I keep the master library on a separate hard drive and ALWAYS save a copy of the .itl file whenever I disconnect. Unfortunately I overwrite the previous file with the new one. That will change.

I never had any problems with iTunes until I went with the "master library" and Airport Express throughout the house system. It seemed like a beautiful solution. Broken library files and wireless dropouts notwithstanding.

I can't really imagine professional DJ's relying on iTunes.