help restoring from backup

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paperlantern622

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Hi all -

I backed up my ITunes library by simply copying my ITunes folder to an external hard drive. I wanted to erase my hard drive and start fresh. When I installed ITunes on my new computer and replaced the empty ITunes folder with the one from my external hard drive, I found that when I opened ITunes, all the songs I had were from 2011 and prior. I noticed that for some reason there were two folders within ITunes - ITunes Media and ITunes Music. ITunes Media had everything else post 2011. What fun.

So I figured I would simply copy everything from ITunes Media and put it into ITunes Music and re-open ITunes and it would all be there. Not so much. For some reason it does not pull the new stuff up. .

Also there are other frustrations such as all my playlists are from 2011 and those I dont know how to merge either.

I am reading about third party software that will "reverse sync" from my ITouch. That is what I am thinking about doing since I synched my ITouch right before I did all this and it has everything I wanted.

Any input would be appreciated since I am very frustrated.

Thanks!
 

cjmnews

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If you copied the entire iTunes folder to your external drive, then you should be fine.

Close iTunes.
Delete the iTunes directory on the C drive
Copy the iTunes directory from the external to the Music directory on the C drive.
You should have a file named iTunes Library.itl in your iTunes folder.
Search the iTunes folder for other files of the same name. Ignore the ones in the Previous iTunes Library directory.
If you have more than one, check the sizes of the files. The larger one should be the correct library.
Hold the SHIFT key and start iTunes. Navigate to and select the larger iTunes Library.itl file (or the only one if you didn't find more than one) to get iTunes to open it.
Now you should have all the music in your library. Playlists should all be fine too.

If you still have 2011 and newer, you can import all the older music with File->Add Folder to Library, and choose the iTunes Music folder.

If the Preferences (Edit->Preferences, Advanced tab) have Keep iTunes Media Folder Organized and Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library checked, then all your old music will be copied to the iTunes Media folder and imported into iTunes as well.

You can delete the iTunes Music folder when this is complete (assuming those 2 preferences were checked) and now you can fix your playlists.
 
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