Damaged filesystem on external drive, and cloned.dmg

Hello,
To make a long story short, I had an external drive that started to show signs of failing. I got all the data off of it, and successfully transfered it to a new external drive. Several months ago my laptop and external drive were stolen, and the only copy of the data i want was on the previous external drive.
** I am skipping all the steps that you could do in disk utility, I did try them, they didnt work
I was able to get the drive to mount by removing the exclosure, and connecting it to my MBP with a sata to usb connector.
The issue now that it stayed mounted was on larger file xfers from drive to system drive, failed.
Next step
Used data rescue 3 to make a clone of the entire drive
externalclone.dmg was the result, and it was 500gb. When i tried to mount the dmg to recover files i get a message that reads
"Warning"
"The following disk images couldnt be opened"
"Image - externalclone.dmg  /  Reason - no mountable filesystems"
no more use in data rescue, non of its other features were able to do anything with it.
superduper, terminal commads, and a few other no name / no help apps all gave me an input/output (I/O) error.
this next part is where i get a little confused and have kind hit a wall
went out got a new 2tb external drive. was able to get the clone.dmg off of my MBP and onto the new external. I originally wanted to burn the image onto an external and use diskwarrior to rebuild the directory, i forgot what the exact error was, but the image wouldnt burn.
now that the image is off my system drive, i try to xfer it back on. When ever i try to do this it will transfer x amount (about 6ish gb) then stop and give me some generic error (sorry i didnt remember at the moment).
I thought i was dealing with a curropt file/filesystem, so i did a little hunting/research and found that someone was able to use synchronize! pro x to make a bootable system backup and had success in skipping the issue files.
i dont have a 3rd workspace right now, so i didnt try that yet, the other features in sync pro work well, but during moving of files it quits when it hits problem files.
So this is where i am, and im not sure what to do next if anything can be done.
as it stands i have a working external drive with the clone.dmg that will not mount on it. The dmg also makes the partion that it is on act up, no idea why.
any help or direction would be greatly apprechiated, this has already given me such a head ache.

the data on the drive really isnt worth the amount of money to recover it. however if i can still remedy the situation on my own i dont really care about time, this has only been a side project. I just dont know what my next step would be if i were to continue to recovery process.

Similar Messages

  • External drives and dmg files mount fine, but won't show on desktop

    Recently purchased a new Mac Mini 2.3 ghz i5 with OSX Lion. Everything is updated, repaired permissions from the check disk utility.
    Still my firewire drive, and any DMG files from software I'm looking to install are not showing up on the desktop. They mount fine, I can write to them, see them on the Finder left siderbar, share them on my intranet at home and use Back to Mac and Screen Sharing without any problems.
    Anyone have an idea why this peculiar flaw is occuring? Is it a "feature" of Lion?

    Much better: I was in the same shoes once as you
    Searching hi and lo for this easy solution.
    Have Fun
    Stefan

  • 30GB of space disappears on External Drive after failed DMG copy via USB

    I have a 298.1 GB external Western Digital hard drive connected to my iMac by a USB 2.0 cable. It is formatted in NTFS-3G so I can use it with both my PC and Mac. Yesterday in Disk Utility I created a 50GB 256-bit encrypted DMG and told Disk Utility to save it on a folder in my external drive. It got to about 20GB and then my house's power went out. A few hours later when the power came back on, I turned on my computer, and the available space on my external hard drive went down from about 100GB to 68.21GB.
    The first thing I thought was that the DMG transfer ended prematurely so I should just find and delete the incomplete DMG from the hard drive. So I went to the folder I saved it in and it was not there. I checked all the folders and I couldn't find any DMG in there. Then I went to the root of the external drive and used Get Info to find the space each folder took up. It adds up to 194.12 GB. So I subtracted 194.12 from 298.1 and got 103.98. If I'm supposed to have 103.98 GB, why do I only have 68.21 GB available? I double and triple checked the size of everything on the disk and I still should have about 30GB more than I do. The 30GB just disappeared.
    I tried verifying the disk in Disk Utility and got:
    2009-06-14 11:12:33 -0400: Verifying volume “SHADUSMEDIA”
    Starting verification tool: 2009-06-14 11:12:33 -0400
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for LOG_LEVEL: 2
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for UBLIO_ENABLED: 1
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for PROBE_DISABLED: 0
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for MOUNTRDISKSENABLED: 1
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for NFCONV_ENABLED: 1
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Read defaults value for ALWAYS_RECOVER: 1
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: ntfs-3g script invoked with command line "/System/Library/Filesystems/ntfs-3g.fs/ntfs-3g.util" "-v" "/dev/disk1s1"
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: Invoking user: MP
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: [Verify] Entering function Verify.
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: ** No NTFS file system checks have been implemented yet.
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: ** Reporting that the volume is fine without checking anything.
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: [Verify] Reporting that the volume is fine, even though that may not be the case (no fs checks performed).
    2009-06-14 11:12:35 -0400: [Verify] Returning from function Verify.
    Verifying tool completed: 2009-06-14 11:12:42 -0400
    So it appears that it's only telling me that it's fine without even checking. I then tried repair disk and got the error message:
    2009-06-14 11:14:25 -0400: Verify and Repair volume “SHADUSMEDIA”
    Starting repair tool: 2009-06-14 11:14:25 -0400
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for LOG_LEVEL: 2
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for UBLIO_ENABLED: 1
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for PROBE_DISABLED: 0
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for MOUNTRDISKSENABLED: 1
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for NFCONV_ENABLED: 1
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Read defaults value for ALWAYS_RECOVER: 1
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: ntfs-3g script invoked with command line "/System/Library/Filesystems/ntfs-3g.fs/ntfs-3g.util" "-y" "/dev/disk1s1"
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Invoking user: MP
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: [Repair] Entering function Repair...
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: [Repair] Marking volume to be checked at next Windows boot.
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: [Repair] "/usr/local/bin/ntfsfix" "" currently disabled.
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: ** /usr/local/bin/ntfsfix has been disabled because of volume corruption issues.
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: ** If you still want to try fixing your volume, use /usr/local/bin/ntfsfix from the command line...
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: [Repair] Returning from function Repair with FSUR_INVAL.
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400:
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400: Disk Utility stopped repairing “SHADUSMEDIA” because the following error was encountered:
    Filesystem verify or repair failed.
    2009-06-14 11:14:26 -0400:
    I tried restarting my iMac and disconnected and reconnecting the cable and that didn't work. I plugged it into my PC and it still says that all the files on my external drive add up to 194.12 GB. Which still means I should have 103.98 GB of free space instead of 68.21 GB.
    So I'm stumped now and not quite sure what to do. Here is the information about the external drive from Disk Utility:
    Name : SHADUSMEDIA
    Type : Volume
    Disk Identifier : disk1s1
    Mount Point : /Volumes/SHADUSMEDIA
    File System : Windows NT Filesystem (NTFS-3G)
    Connection Bus : USB
    Device Tree : IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/USB7@1D,7
    Writable : Yes
    Capacity : 298.1 GB (320,070,288,384 Bytes)
    Free Space : 68.3 GB (73,348,239,360 Bytes)
    Used : 229.8 GB (246,722,048,512 Bytes)
    Number of Files : 145,472
    Number of Folders : 0
    Owners Enabled : Yes
    Can Turn Owners Off : No
    Can Repair Permissions : No
    Can Be Verified : Yes
    Can Be Repaired : Yes
    Can Be Formatted : Yes
    Bootable : No
    Supports Journaling : No
    Journaled : No
    Disk Number : 1
    Partition Number : 1
    You can see on there it says I've used 229.8 GB, when I've actually only used 194.12 GB. Here are the specs from System Profiler for my iMac:
    Model Name: iMac
    Model Identifier: iMac5,1
    Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
    Processor Speed: 2 GHz
    Number Of Processors: 1
    Total Number Of Cores: 2
    L2 Cache: 4 MB
    Memory: 1 GB
    Bus Speed: 667 MHz
    Boot ROM Version: IM51.0090.B09
    SMC Version: 1.8f2
    Serial Number: QP6450GKVUX
    I'm running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6. If you need any more information just ask, I'd really like to get my 30GB back. Thanks in advance.

    Can anyone help?

  • I'd love some help trying to figure out why my 2008 MacBook no longer recognizes my external drive and now is not downloading photos from my iphone....?

    After many years of having no problems at all on my Macbook, I recently figured I should finally upgrade my OS. I did that about three weeks ago, updating to Snow Leopard (10.6.8). I used Time Machine at least once after the OS upgrade but now Time Machine no longer recognizes the external drive I have used for all these years to back up. The MacBook does not "see" it. (Disk Utility does however.) The computer then also stopped recognizing another La Cie back-up that I have and now... my iPhone cannot download photos? Yikes.
    I have, of course, shut down numerous times, used different cables (that worked for some) and the two USB drives. I even used a firewire. Nothing worked. I also tried to "Repair disk" on Disk Utility. It didn't work either, giving me an error (that I didn't save, sorry).
    I read many other discussions on the file format of the external drive and of course I'd be happy to reformat the external drives--however, it is obviously a tad nerve-wracking to reformat drives before having an accessible back-up. Suggestions? I do not remember what file format they have but am pretty sure it's not the Mac file system someone mentioned. The drives are a 2009 WD "My Passport Elite" and La Cie 2007 d2 Quadra,
    In terms of other hardware available, we do have another MacBook Air but it has  started rejecting both drives as well (without the Snow Leopard upgrade). We have an old Dell but it wouldn't have the disk space to help out much.
    Any thoughts on the process involved would be welcome.  Any ideas on the iPhone rejection would be helpful as well! It is a 30gig iPhone 4 that has 20 or so gigs free (not clear as iTunes says that there are abour 18 Gigs on the phone but 24 free gigs? I may be bad at math but that's 40 gigs...).
    I am checking out iCloud but apparently there are only 55 gigs available?
    Will be glad to hear any thoughts. Thanks!

    Good afternoon Lyssa,
    Phew. First of all, thanks in advance...these blogs are always comforting help!
    So, to answer your questions: For the age of the hard drive.Well, I added memory a couple of years ago (RAM and hard drive). Being a mom leads me to eat up a fair amount of gigs with photos of my kids and, in fact, I think I entirely replaced the original drive, so it is a couple years younger than 2008 since I did that in March 2010. If there is some way to verify that (whether or not I replaced the entire drive), I'm all ears. I have 311 Gigs free, so it is not a space issue. I verified the startup disk on Disk Utilityand nothing showed up.
    Question 1- What formats...
    The La Cie is format Windows NT Filesystem 3G ....At the time that I bought it I was still using a PC as well as a Mac and was told by afriend to use this format...
    The WD is Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I again tried to repair the WD last night and this is the error message: "Error: DiskUtility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files."
    Also, Time Machine tried again to back-up and gave  me this error: "Files can't becopied onto the backup disk because it appears to be 'read only'. You may needto repair or reformat the disk using Disk Utility. If the disk can't berepaired, you must use a different disk for backups. Open Time Machinepreferences to select a different backup disk."
    Question 2. Other cables...
    I used two other cables with the WD and that didn't change anything.  
    Question 3... Fire Wire from the La Cie
    Yes, I used the Firewire cable from the La Cie and it is indeed present, though still not visible in Finder. Since it is not Mac OSExtended I know that I can't use Time Machine with it.  
    So, in summary...
    I can plug in the La Cie and it is functional on the MacBook, visible on Disk Utility but not visible in Finder. The WD drive is not visible and not functional. So we can think it is indeed the WD that is not working.... Also, the iphone photos did, in the end, get downloaded, so it is not something more general.
    Causes...
    I forgot to mention that there is a "lost+found" file on the WD which apparently points to a UNIX /OS issue?   
    Some kind of "insurance"?....
    I'm curious about how people avoid this kind of issue. You just regularly replace back-up drives and hard drives before problems come up? Time Machine is great and saves many of us from disasters, however, knowing that your Time Machine back-ups are vulnerable makes the whole system insecure. No way to have alarms ring before the drive goes out?   
    As for ways ahead...
    It seems that I ought to be able to copy off of the WD to the MacBook then erase it and reformat it and start over again. However, I haven’t been able to see its contents except on random occasions. If you have any ideas on how to copy the Time Machineback-ups from the WD, again, I'm all ears!
    Good afternoon Lyssa,
    Phew. First of all, thanks in advance...
    So, to answer your questions:
    For the age of the hard drive. Well, I added memory a coupleof years ago (RAM and hard drive). Being a mom leads me to eat up a fair amountof gigs with photos of my kids ….and, in fact, I think I entirely replaced theoriginal drive, so it is a couple years younger than 2008 since I did that inMarch 2010. If there is some way to verify that, I'm all ears. I have 311 Gigfree, so it is not a space issue. I verified the startup disk on Disk Utilityand nothing showed up.
    Question 1- What formats...
    The La Cie is format Windows NT Filesystem 3G ....At thetime that I bought it I was still using a PC as well as a Mac and was told by afriend to use this format...
    The WD is Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I again tried torepair the WD last night and this is the error message: "Error: DiskUtility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible,reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files."
    Also, Time Machine tried again to back-up and gave me thiserror: "Files can't be copied onto the backup disk because it appearsto be 'read only'. You may need to repair or reformat the disk using DiskUtility. If the disk can't be repaired, you must use a different disk forbackups. Open Time Machine preferences to select a different backup disk."
    Question 2. Other cables...
    I used two other cables with the WD and that didn't changeanything.
    Question 3... Fire Wire from the La Cie
    Yes, I used the Firewire cable from the La Cie and it isindeed accessible, though still not visible in Finder. Since it is not Mac OSExtended I know that I can't use Time Machine with it.
    FYI...
    So, in summary... I can plug in the La Cie and it is “functional” on theMacBook but not visible in Finder. The WD drive is not visible and notfunctional. So we can think it is indeed the WD that is not working.... ALSO,the iphone photos did, in the end get downloaded.
    As for ways ahead…
    It seems that I ought to be able to copy off of the WD tothe MacBook then erase it and reformat it and start over again. However, Ihaven’t been able to “see” its contents except on random occasions…
    Any further thoughts are welcome!

  • I cannot seem to load raw images into LR 2.5.  I've been using this for years.  I always load from memory card, but it gives me an unknown error message.  I tried to load from camera, hard drive, & external drive and still will not work.  I checked import

    I cannot seem to load raw images into LR 2.5.  I've been using this for years.  I always load from memory card, but it gives me an unknown error message.  I tried to load from camera, hard drive, & external drive and still will not work.  I checked import menu and nothing has changed.  I loaded the photos onto my tablet and images are fine, so do not feel it is the memory card.  Any thoughts?

    The error message probably said "unsupported or damaged"
    The T3 requires Lightroom 3.4.1 or later. You can either upgrade to a more current version of Lightroom (version 5.6 is the most recent) or you can use the free Adobe DNG Converter to convert the RAWs to DNG, which should import into Lightroom properly.

  • External drive and iphoto help

    hi i was uploading pictures into iphoto witch is on my external drive and i accidentally unpluged the drive while it was uploading the files and now everything is screwed up this is the massage i get when i try and open iphoto from this drive The iPhoto Library is on a locked volume. Relaunch iPhoto when the volume has read/write accees or relaunch iPhoto with <option> key held down any ideas please help
    imac intel Mac OS X (10.4.4)

    Hold down the option (or alt) key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and point it at the Library on the external.
    If that doesn’t open then you have damaged the Library.
    Try these in order - from best option on down...
    1. Do you have an up-to-date back up? If so, try copy the library6.iphoto file from the back up to the iPhoto Library allowing it to overwrite the damaged file.
    2. Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. This will create a new library based on data in the albumdata.xml file. Not everything will be brought over - no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your albums and keywords back.
    Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.
    3. If neither of these work then you'll need to create and populate a new library.
    To create and populate a new *iPhoto 6* library:
    Note this will give you a working library with the same Rolls and pictures as before, however, you will lose your albums, keywords, modified versions, books, calendars etc.
    Move the iPhoto Library to the desktop
    Launch iPhoto. It will ask if you wish to create a new Library. Say Yes.
    Go into the iPhoto Library on your desktop and find the Originals folder. From the Originals folder drag the individual Roll Folders to the iPhoto Window and it will recreate them in the new library.
    When you're sure all is well you can delete the iPhoto Library on your desktop.
    In the future, in addition to your usual back up routine, you might like to make a copy of the library6.iPhoto file whenever you have made changes to the library as protection against database corruption.
    Regards
    TD

  • External drive and IGNORE OWNERSHIP issue

    So here at work we share an external drive where we ALL share the files. And a good bit of the time one of us tries to open or save a file and it saws one of several things like "access denied" or "you don't have the right privileges and you will not be able to save changes" Anyway if I go in and get info on the external drive and click the "ignore ownerships" box all seems to be well...for a while. BUT the drive will sporadically decide to UNCHECK that button. It's very annoying. Any FIX for this issues.
    Oh, I also have it "locked" which I assume means it can't be changed but that is not the case. Any help is appreciated Thanks.

    Sorry, I don't know anything about Silverlining -- I'm a moderator at the Bombich (CCC) forums. If Silverlining allows for attaching a post-cloning script ask the Silverlining developer/distributor. If not, ask for help (even though the script will be pretty simple you may well need some troubleshooting until it works perfectly) in one of the scripting forums (AppleScript or Unix), e.g. this one.
    Andreas

  • I think the DVD player reader on my Mac is going bad. Is there a way to copy the files off of an Apple Install DVD onto an external drive and then do theinstall from the external drive?

    I think the DVD player reader on my Mac is going bad. Until I get it fixed Is there a way to copy the files off of an Apple Install DVD onto an external drive and then do theinstall from the external drive? It's ILife 11 if that makes a difference. Finder won't let me see the files to copy. I know - dumb question.
    Thanks.
    Bob

    Adding an SSD is not a simple endeavour like adding additional memory or adding another hard drive to a Mac Pro. That's probably why the option is only offered as an option at the time of purchase. Even if your Apple store was willing to install the necessary parts you will probably be paying for 1-2 hours of labor plus the cost of purchasing the necessary service parts (SSD, bracket, cables, etc) which I suspect will make the upgrade cost much higher than what it costs to add the SSD option when purchasing a new system.
    I use my system for business and need it to work reliably.  Even though I'm fairly handy with tools I would not be willing to risk damaging my system and voiding my warranty by opening my system and removing the logic board and several other parts in order to squeeze in an SSD option and attach the appropriate cables and brackets. I'm also not prepared to deal with the hassles of explaining why my system has unauthorized parts installed in the event I experience issues and need to make use of my Apple warranty. My time is valuable, so I would probably investigate external storage options, or if I needed the speed of an SSD, I would consider selling my existing system and then purchase a new system configured with an SSD.
    If you haven't already done so I suggest doing a search on 'iMac SSD installation' to see what's involved. It might help you understand why the SSD option is not offered post purchase.

  • I'm using Time Machine and a LaCie external drive to backup. I also have a 8 GB LaCie flash drive I want to use for small jobs. If I plug the LaCie flash drive in, is my Mac going to think it is the LaCie external drive and start trying to backup?

    I'm using Time Machine and a LaCie external drive to backup. I also have a 8 GB LaCie flash drive I want to use for small jobs. If I plug the LaCie flash drive in, is my Mac going to think it is the LaCie external drive and start trying to backup?

    no.

  • Taking the plunge - external drive and exclamation points

    Okay...
    I have cried for help on this forum before about the somewhat common problem of iTunes 7 having a strange relationship with music on my external drive. The drive in question is a Lacie 250 GB Firewire drive.
    A few months ago, out of the blue, one day I opened iTunes to find a sea of exclamation points. Though all the music I had added after a particular date was there, most of the music I had added prior to that was tagged with the exclamation. When I'd try to play one of these songs, iTunes would say it could not be found, though I could manually locate it and things would work fine. I tried a few fixes recommended on this forum by well-meaning but misguided people that resulted in a few sets of duplicate playlists but no fix to the problem. Then, one day, out of the blue again...it started working fine.
    I don't even recall having restarted the computer. iTunes had just fixed the problem somehow.
    Well, now the problem is back, and I've dealt with it for about a month. But I'm not convinced that it will just go away this time. So, even if I destroy my painstakingly cultivated hundreds of playlists, ratings, play history and comprehensive information (artwork, composer, etc.), I am determined to fix this problem without manually locating over 10,000 songs.
    I am posting my attempts here as a record that will hopefully help those struggling with this problem in the future. Though I would welcome any and all comments or questions, I have frankly come to expect very little assistance or even the willingness to assist from this forum (that is to say, I imagine my unresolved question will languish for awhile as a monologue until I either fix the problem or die).
    The first thing I will do (after doing a final backup, of course) is to determine whether it makes a difference if an updated version of my iTunes library file and .xml are in the Music folder (on my hard drive) or in my Musica folder (on the external drive). The latest edition of the file is currently on the external drive.
    So, here we go...
    Grant
    Dual 1GHz G4, 1G RAM, 80G HD   Mac OS X (10.4.9)   iPod (1st Gen), iPod Shuffle (1st Gen), iPod Mini, External HD

    Well, I've made quite a mess of things. So I have 14,000 songs. Most were added years ago. Looking at the date added in correlation with the exclamation points, it seems as though iTunes forgot the location of most of the songs added before 5/9/06. Mind you, iTunes worked fine (with the exception of doing this whole thing once before) until about a month ago. So, in May 2007, iTunes forgot most of what happened before 5/9/06.
    (For reference purposes, the gap seems to exist between two songs I downloaded. "Help Me, Ronda" by the Beach Boys is the last song with an exclamation point in the date added list (see two exceptions below). "Proud Mary" by Ike & Tina Turner, on the other hand, is exclamation point free and only a couple of songs added after "Proud Mary" have exclamation points. They are:
    Freedom, by Richie Havens, added 6/3/06.
    Slow Free Bird, by Geesekey, added 12/17/06, a song I made in Garageband.
    Now, don't let me give you the impression that there is a solid wall of exclamation points up to "Help Me, Rhonda." Maybe about every 10/20 songs, there is a song with no exclamation point that plays fine. Following Jase's lead before (his advice to another user), I have investigated some of these songs that work fine, but can't find any reason why these work and others don't (any difference in the iTunes Library.xml, files created with/without track number, etc.).
    So, here's what happened in the past couple of days: I dragged my "iTunes Music" folder (located in my "Musica" folder on the external drive) into the iTunes source list). Most everything was duplicated, with the new songs playing just fine but lacking ratings and play history. Also, the new songs were not included on any playlists.
    What I did next was poorly executed. I sorted iTunes by the Date Added and selected the first few thousand (roughly, A-J; seeing them according to the Date Added reveal that they weren't added in exactly a linear fashion). I hit the delete button and selected "Remove", but I then told iTunes to "Move to Trash." What I should have done, I imagine, is told iTunes to "Keep Files". So, my A-J songs are now deleted off the External Drive and gone (though I have backup DVDs generated by the iTunes "Back up to Disc" feature).
    What should I do next? is the pressing question. Should I rip everything out and start from scratch with my backup discs? I guess the question I would have with that approach is this: if I restore from backup discs made three months ago, will I still have all my playlists, ratings and play history as they were when I made the backup? If that's the case, that'd be fine with me...I just want to make sure that's what will happen. Also, I have a backup of my iTunes Library file before I've done all this crazy stuff of the past few days, so if that enters into the equation, let me know.
    Otherwise, let me address your comments, Jase.
    Anyway, here's a question. Can you export your
    playlists, even though they're made up of songs with
    exclamation marks? If so, you could try exporting one
    of them as an XML file. Then import it--you'll
    probably wind up with duplicates (playlists, not
    songs). Does the newly imported playlist play, or
    does it still have the exclamation mark problem? I
    wouldn't know what to expect, but it might be worth a
    try.
    My playlists themselves are all still the same as they were (though there are exclamation marks all over the place). From what I can tell, they look fine when exported to an .xml (the music folder seems to have the correct path). When I import it, it's the same deal: exclamation points at the same places.
    If your playlists are exportable, you might want to
    export them to XML files, just so you'll have those
    little databases of them. Then, if worse came to
    worse and you had to give up on your current Library
    file and reload your Music folder into a new library,
    at least there's a chance you could import your
    playlists and not have to build them again from
    scratch (assuming nothing has changed in terms of the
    organization of your Music folder).
    I'm not willing to export every playlist, because I have hundreds and it would just take too long. Is there a way to export all or a lot of playlists at once? Anyway, I figured that my playlist data was stored somehow in the iTunes Library file, so I felt I had a backup already. I could be wrong about this, though, as I really don't understand much about the iTunes Library file and .xml and the like.
    Can you drag songs that have exclamation marks into a
    playlist? Somehow, I doubt it. But if you can, you
    could use new playlists to make a record of some
    information that you might want to save if you had to
    start all over again with a new Library.
    Believe it or not, I can add songs with an exclamation point into playlists and they're added just fine (though, they still have the exclamation point). How this works is: I can't drag and drop them into a playlist. However, I can control-click and select "Add to Playlist" and it works. There's another mystery for you.
    Have you looked at your iTunes Library.xml file --
    specifically at the location information for
    individual songs -- to see if the location
    information exactly matches the information you see
    in the Finder? I have found mismatches when
    investigating some exclamation marked files. I didn't
    know how that happened, and I didn't know what to
    about it, but it was intriguing to see evidence of
    some iTunes mischief.
    Is the iTunes feature to start music file names with
    the track number turned on? To my mind, fewer missing
    song file problems occur when this is on.
    Yes and yes. Based on what you told others, I have looked at the .xml of some of the problem songs and the working ones and could find no difference, but I didn't really know what I was supposed to be looking for. I also use the Add Track Number feature and always have.
    If you still have the 28,000 songs in your Library
    and want to go back to the 14,000, you could sort all
    your songs by Date Added and delete the ones you
    added on June 21. Or, if you saved a copy of your
    iTunes Library file before you dragged your iTunes
    Music folder into the library, you could just throw
    out the more recent Library file and reinstitute the
    back-up copy.
    I probably should have done the latter (just restore the backup of the iTunes Library file). Oh well...
    Some advice for future experiments. Try them with a
    small sample if possible unless you're absolutely
    sure they will work the way you want them to. For
    example, drag one album in your Music folder into
    iTunes rather than the whole Music folder.
    This is a great idea. I wish I would have checked my sample more closely or done more tests before I plunged off the cliff.
    Back up your iTunes Library file, as well as your
    Music folder. (You might already do this.)
    Check.
    Those are a few things to think about. They probably
    will not be helpful. Like I said, I don't think there
    are clear answers to this problem. The best I can
    wish for you is that iTunes will magically fix the
    problem, like it did once before. Then, maybe there
    are some preventive measures you can take.
    Since iTunes did fix it once before, I would not
    throw your current iTunes Library file away, no
    matter what. If you decide to start a new library so
    that you can actually listen to your music, rename
    this Library file and keep it around, since it has a
    lot of your metadata in it. You can try it every now
    and then and see if iTunes spontaneously revives it.
    Okay, I will post what I do next, provided that I don't hear any compelling advice and make my own decision (though I should be even more gun-shy after my recent blunders).
    Grant

  • Can I use Time Machine to backup to partition on external drive and a Time Capsule?

    Trying to plan in advance...
    I was wondering if I can (with a laptop) use Time Machine for both:
    1. Creating Time Machine backups on a partiion of an external drive. My plan was going to create  2 partitions: one to be used for Time Machine backups of another external hard drive (that holds all of my media) and then the other partition was going to be a bootable clone of my internal drive (totally separate from Time Machine)
    and
    2. Also use Time Machine for my Time Capsule, to create Time Machine backups of my internal drive.
    Is this possible? I had heard that you can't use TM to make backups to a partition on an external drive, AND use it for another drive (like Time Capsule) at the same time. But I would think that this should be possible-
    Thanks everyone-

    Yes you can, and if you are using Mountain Lion it's easy.
    If you are using Snow Leopard (as in your profile - this is the Mountain Lion forum), you have to manually select the backup volume each time. Tedious, but possible.
    Read Apple Support Communities contributor Pondini's FAQ on that subject: "Rotating" Time Machine backup disks

  • I redirected iTunes to an external drive and moved my iTunes library and folder, but my hard drive is still low on space.  How can I be sure that my music is all on the external HD ONLY, especially with the new iCloud technology?

    I redirected iTunes to an external drive and moved my iTunes library and folder, but my hard drive is still low on space.  How can I be sure that my music is all on the external HD ONLY, especially with the new iCloud technology?  It doesn't look like I created any more space by doing this, AND I totally lost all my iTunes playlists.  I'm not sure if because I added old library materials manually if this messed up my playlists, or if the new location is just not reading my moved library.  In any case, I followed step by step instructions and found a few holes and thought I'd just "figure it out" but I guess I'm not as smart as I thought since I'm still scratching my head many hours later.
    Thanks for any support ;-)
    Eaglerocker

    Quick answer if you use iTunes' default preferences settings:  Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive.  Open iTunes and immediately hold down the option (alt) key (shift on Windows) so you get a prompt to select a library, then guide it to the 'iTunes Library.itl' file in the moved iTunes folder.
    If this is to a new computer and you put the copied iTunes folder in the default location of Macintosh HD > Users > *User Name* > Music  then you don't even need to start with the option key held down, iTunes will automatically look for it there.  (Make sure there isn't anything already in the iTunes folder there that you want to keep since you will be replacing it with the one you are moving.)
    iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music [library] to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527 - a somewhat bewildering and not always easily understandable set of options.

  • How can I download my iMac iTunes library to an external drive and reload the library to iTunes on a PC?

    How can I download my iMac iTunes library to an external drive and reload the library to iTunes on a PC?

    Hi Niel.  Can you be move specific for those of us not tech savy?   1 - Can you provide steps to back up the library?  2 - How do you organize the library?  3 - When you move the entire iTunes folder, does it include iTunes paid for music along with downloaded music from CDs?  Thanks

  • I have my iphoto library on an external drive, but it filled up.  Can I have another library in another external drive and use them both?

    I have old pictures in my external drive that I filled up.  I would like to make another iphoto library in a new external drive and have this one for new pictures.  Can I do that? And how will I be able to see my old pictures on my older external drive? My iphoto is 9.5.1.

    Yes.  Another way to switch between libraries is with this menu in iPhoto:

  • How do I store my iTunes library on an external drive and can I still access it as I would if it was still all sitting on the mini mac?

    The mini mac is full and I want to be able to use the 2 tb drive as storage and time machine. How do I get the content onto the external drive and access it it and hoe does new content get downloaded and stored to the drive not the mac? Also can I have 1 drive playing storeage and back up or do I need a second? Basic questions I suspect but not to me!

    1. Drag the library to the external drive, launch iTunes with the Option key held down, click on Choose Library, and point it there.
    2. Get a second. Having the backups on the same drive as the original data won't help when that drive fails.
    (66929)

Maybe you are looking for