Losing iTunes Tag Info Upon Restore from Time Machine Backup
I tried to drag & drop the iTunes music folder from my backup external drive (time machine backup) into my current iTunes music library. The files copied OK but most of the tag info (artist, album, genre, etc.) was lost. Also, the system placed a two digit number in front of the song title. Does anyone know why this happened or what I did wrong?
In the event that you have a failure with your drive, you want to drag the entire iTunes folder back to the computer after things are repaired. In this folder you will find a database file (iTunes Library) along with the iTunes Music folder. It sounds like you only copied the iTunes Music folder, not the iTunes folder that it sits in.
If you copy that whole folder, then you can restore your entire library as it was including play lists, counts, ratings, etc. and all the WAV file tags.
You might try converting one of the WAV files to AIFF and to Apple Lossless, update the tags in both, then remove them from your library but don't let them get deleted off the hard drive. Now add them both back in and see if the tag info is retained. Off the top of my head I only recall WAV for sure not saving this info, but AIFF might and I am pretty sure Apple Loss does. AIFF has the advantage of being universal but will retain the same file size as WAV. Apple Lossless has the advantage of somewhat smaller file size, but may not be easily transferable to other non-Mac systems. All three type (wav, aiff, and lossless) are lossless formats, so all give you the same quality as the original from which you got them.
If AIFF and Apple LL both retain the metadata, then you might consider switching to one of those if quality is your number one priority. Although my own opinion is 320kbps MP3 would sound plenty good, but then I only rip my stuff to 192kbps MP3s, so perhaps I just am not as picky as a lot of people.
Cheers,
Patrick
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My Daughter is currently upgrading her MacBook Pro to OS X Lion. During the upgrade the system rebooted and then stops at the OS X Utilites menu. I have installed this same upgrade on My MacBook Pro and the family iMAC without issue. Did the upgrade encounter a problem? The only options are to Restore from Time Machine Backup, Reinstall Mac OS X, Get help, or Disk Utility.
I'm not sure how recient the backup is on the TimeMachine for her system and she is concered that she may loose a lot of updates she has made to iTunes and iPhoto.
Please help.I have 8 GB of RAM, but would that even matter during install? Performance once installed and running sure, but I questiong whether the installer would demand that much more, or why it would affect mountain lion when restoring from a time machine backup.
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Duplicate Admin accounts on restoring from Time Machine backup
I need help to remove duplicate accounts, created after restore from Time Machine Backup.
Here is the situation:
1. I was running SL on a Mac Pro with Time Machine backup. I had 5 User Accounts on the Login Window: Shared (Admin account), Dear Wife (DW, also Admin), Kid1 (managed), Kid2 (managed) and Guest (standard), and two 750 GB hard drives, HD1 and HD2.
2. Mac Pro would not boot past the Apple logo with spinning icon.
3. After talking to with Apple Support, it turned out that HD1 had crashed. I took it in to the Genius Bar, where they checked and confirmed HD1 crash and took it in for repair.
4. Apple replaced HD1 and reinstalled SL.
5. I picked up the Mac Pro. At home I reconnected TM and restarted.
6. Upon restart, I clicked on restore from TM backup and there was only 1 TM backup visible to select. After several hours of Transferring Information, about 700 GB was restored
7. Upon finishing restore, I saw the same Login Window as before crash, with the same 5 accounts - Shared, DW, Kid1, Kid2, Guest.
8. Issue: From the Login Window, logging into Shared and clicking on HD1>Users, I now see: Home Icon with Shared1, and four additional folders: Shared, DW, Kid1, Kid2
It seems I now have duplicate Shared accounts in the User folder - Shared1 with the Home icon, and a separate folder with name Shared.
I cannot "Move to Trash" Shared, since I get the message: “Shared” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by Mac OS X.
When I go into System Prefs>Accounts: I see My Account: Shared, and Other Accounts: DW, Kid1, Kid2, Guest. After unlocking the accounts, and right clicking on Shared for Advanced Options, I see:
User: "Shared"
-- Account Name: shared
-- Home Directory:/Users/shared1
Question: How do I consolidate or get rid of the duplicate Shared/Shared1 account? I have 350 GB of video/pictures/music in each of these accounts, which is unnecessarily eating up the new HD1.
Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!I solved the duplicate account problem.
I had used Setup Assistant to restore from TM Backup and that gave me the duplicate accounts, i.e., method used was:
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/19.html
After carefully reading Pondini's FAQs, I instead used the Restore and install Method, i.e.,
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/14.html
No duplicate accounts anymore, problem solved. -
Hi all,
My computer had been running really slowly for a while, so I decided to erase the whole hard drive and reinstall the operating system, and then I was going to restore the files I cared about from Time Machine. The main account, which had all my documents and photos, was FileVault-protected. The last thing I did before erasing the hard drive was to run one last Time Machine backup. As far as I remember, I always ran Time Machine backups with the FileVaulted user logged in.
I don't remember whether I was using FileVault 1 or 2. I had been using FileVault 1, but I installed Lion as soon as it came out and I thought I had migrated to FileVault 2 at that point.
Once I erased the hard drive and reinstalled the operating system, I browsed the Time Machine disk and, within the Users folder, there was no folder for the main user account. When I tried to reinstall everything by restoring from Time Machine backup, I'd get the option for all the user accounts, but when I tried to log in with the main one I'd get the dreaded "You are unable to log in to the FileVault user account "User" at this time. Log in failed because an error occurred." Finally, when attempting to restore from the Time Machine backup again, I noticed something strange: After the computer got to about 10% done restoring, it declared itself completed successfully and rebooted.
I've tried a number of tips that came up from questions about similar issues on the Apple support forum, but had no luck. Is there any way to get these files back? Did they ever even get backed up?
Thanks.Hroodbwai wrote:
I can't find it! not sure what's going on but the only folder shown is the " Shared" folder.
Did you have only the one user account? If there were others, they should also be in the "Users" folder. You probably won't have access to the files inside them, but they should be there.
From what can make out, it looks like it's not backed up any of the files for the filevault account. Can't see user folder when looking through previous backups in Time Machine galaxy view.
Are you doing that from a Finder window set to your internal HD, or your computer name? It should look something like this (with the Finder in List view):
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I'd been logging out and backing up manually on a regular basis.
Scheduled backups should run normally; but they won't back up the File Vault sparse bundle, nor will any run manually.
The only time it's backed-up is when you actually log out.
You should have seen this window on logout:
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followed by this one:
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If you didn't see the second one, or cancelled it, the account wasn't backed-up. -
Imac won't restore from time machine backup after HD (hard drive) recall replacement
I have an imac bought in 2011, running Snow Leopard. It required an HD replacement due to the 1 TB Seagate recall - the replacement was done by a certified Apple repair station yesterday. Before the guy left he started a backup/restore from my latest time machine backup set. It failed. I attempted it two times and got error messages that it failed and the computer needed to be restarted to try it again. No luck. I called the guy back and he told me to call Apple Care. Not thrilled about that response since the guy had just left my house I did what he told me to do. (A quick sideline here: I recognize that a time machine backup should be no big deal and SHOULD work everytime, but it doesn't. It irks me that Apple is replacing my HD through no fault of mine and yet they don't allow the restore of data to be a "covered" expense in this process - this isn't just because this was an authorized repair guy - the Apple store would have done the same).
Back to the issue. When I called apple care they pretty much had me try the same thing again with an earlier back up set. To my knowledge, it didn't work. I say this because it looked like it was working and when I came back to the imac later, it had restarted and once again booted to the OSX install. (The boot disc is still in the imac). When I tried to boot from another location, one did not show up to boot from so I assumed that the data didn't transfer and it forced another restart. So, I tried something else. I tried to re-install the snow leopard OSX without using the restore function. That appeared to work and then when the machine restarted it asked if I had another mac and I chose the option to get the files/apps/etc. from my time machine backup. The computer chose what I can only assume is the most recent backup set (It chose what I know to be a subfolder that appears under the dated backup folder - Macintosh HD--which btw is confusing seeing as that's always the name of the HD on the imac). I again stepped away from the computer so it could do its thing for two hours. When I returned, I was back to the MAC OSX screen that asks you to choose a language. There were no more options to choose DISK UTILITY or RESTORE FROM BACKUP, etc. When I clicked on English it took me right back into the screen where you say whether you have another Apple that you want to transfer data from. I realized that the imac must have restarted and I assumed maybe it was because the boot disk was still in - except how do you get the disc to eject? I also initially assumed that the backup had somehow failed again and triggered a restart. I tried to choose the option to just set up the machine without transferring data and when I got to the choose a name for your HOME folder message I tried to enter the same name I had it as before and it wouldn't allow me to do so, saying that that name was already in use. I also tried a different name and that didn't work either - got the same message (I assume if it is not the same name that it won't sync up with the time machine data from the backup set). So, I almost tried the "select time machine backup" option again until I looked at my HD space. Clearly, there is space that has been used. HD space was 997 at the start and now it's 636. My initial thought is to somehow get back into the setup area where I can use disc utility and erase the whole thing and then start over but 1) I don't think it's going to work even if I could get back there 2) I have no idea how to get this thing to reboot into that mode 3) I can't get the boot CD out to even try to restart to see if this thing did what it was supposed to, SO NOW I AM TOTALLY STUCK! I have not called Apple Care back because quite frankly they were useless the first time. I have a call into the repair guy but who knows how much help he will be. In the mean time, I have a million things to do and a computer that isn't working - Whoever said Apples never have issues needs to be seriously censored!
A few other notes: I use Time Machine Editor to run my backups weekly. It was set up that way from the get go by an Apple rep who came to my house to get us up and running. Editor should not effect the way that time machine does its work, so I doubt there is relevance but thought it worth mentioning.
One other note is that the Apple Care agent tried to have me do something called a "Source" something or other from the disk utility screen but when she realized that my backup file (shown by date) contained many other sub files (11-27-12/MacintoshHD/MyNamesIMAC/etc.), it was not possible to run this operation - thus we aborted. Sorry I don't remember the name of the process and unfortunately now can't access that option to go find it.
If you can help me, I would be eternally grateful! I am open to having a phone conversation if you are willing to give me your email to mail you my number. I have so much work to do this week and this was the last thing I needed. Did I mention this was supposed to be EASY?
I used to be quite the geek with my PC - still on the learning curve with the mac but not enjoying it. I am fairly tech savvy and I can follow instructions for a step by step solution if you've got one.I got a recall and had the drive replaced. I have retored 3 timesa dn even had apple do the job and it is still not right. I still can't get a simple ghost of the data from time machineback tot he new drive.
This is Apple's explaination as taken from their web page.:
Restoring your entire system from a backup
If you are restoring a backup made by a Mac to the same Mac
With your backup drive connected, start up your Mac from the Recovery system (Command-R at startup) or Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc. Then use the "Restore From Time Machine Backup" utility.
Note: If "You can't restore this backup because it was created by a different model of Mac" appears when restoring a backup that was made on a different Mac, follow the onscreen instructions.
I even posted this information on the community and apple removed it... because they don't like the:
Off-topic or non-technical posts
Non-constructive rants or complaints
But here is my experieince:
Take in 27iMac running 10.6.8, 5-7 days, what a joke, my boss will be happy to pay for a week without working. Finally get, "if you have TM back up, 3 days." Get machine back with 10.6.3, hit the R recovery, click TM back up, runs for 2 hours, reboots, looks great. Box up take back to office... update to install - OH NO, still running 10.6.3. Updates crash with no specific error on install, BUG PROBELM, nothing runs.
Call Apple... after hours, tells me to boot using 10.6.2 disk, wipe, reinstall OS, udate to 10.6.8, THEN do the restore. GREAT! Only thing 10.6.2 DVD won't read... now back on phone... take back to the store, Genius says, he'll ix it just like it was. PROMISES it'll be fixed.
Pick up next day, supposedly, booted to disk, wiped drive, reinstalled, updated to 10.6.8 and THEN did the RIGHT restore... Looks GREAT... apps run and 10.6.8 OS. Back to the office... NOT RUNNING right!!!... fonts messed up, drop box app needs new install, cocktail needs upgrade, Fetch not working, memorized paths gone... back ups locked out of permissions... ***!!
4 hours on phone with apple and still no rsolution - to missing "settings". Seems there are THREE WAYS TO RESTORE (according to apply tech)... Running MIGRATE ASSISTANT and being able to choose your files, including settings, "R" RESTORE after they load a new OS... or NOW WAITING for them to send me a bootable 10.6.3 disk and then boot from disk, w/o installing OS and doing a restore from TM. I think this is done via the disk Utilties application.
So now can't back up without doing a full 400 GB back up since permissons are screwed and possibly destroying any good back ups... can't work, like having hands tied behind back. WAITING for solution! Very upset!!!
I did my first restore just like they said and now an 10 days without proper machine. Just FYI. I thnk I am going to make the store do the tech work so I have somthing to fall back on. -
Can't restore from Time Machine backup error message
My hard drive on my Macbook failed a few days ago. Just makes a clanking noise and won't boot up etc... I installed a new drive, formatted it, and selected restore from Time Machine backup from the installer screen. It started restoring from my backup I had on an external drive and everything was fine untill it got about 6% done then get a message that says "An error occured when restoring from the backup" It is pretty non descriptive. It also says please restart your system and try again or something to that effect. I tried again, same problem. When I try to copy files over manually I eventually gets some error that says there is a problem with a file and it will quit. Any ideas on how to get my data? I can see all my files on there, but can't get them. My backup disc is just used for backup on this one machine nothing else, so it shouldn't have a problem. Help!
Good to hear MA is doing something!
>I have never had much luck with Time Machine...
Same here, not one good backup or restore, can't tell which.
You can set any of these to Clone/Update as often as you wish...
Carbon copy cloner...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Or SuperDuper...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/
Or the most expensive one & my favorite, Tri-Backup...
http://www.tri-edre.com/english/products/tribackup.html -
i cannot able able to start my macbook and then i started my mac in a recovery mode now mac os X utility window opens with 4 options 1. Restore From Time Machine Backup 2. Reinstall Mac OSX 3. Get Help Online 4. Disk Utility if i try to restore my mac with time machine no option appears if i reinstall from Mac OSX error comes and cannot able to recover from disk utility please help how can i reinstall mac OSX
Guitar21,
your MacBook Pro has booted into its Recovery mode. From the OS X Utilities menu, select Disk Utility. On the left-hand side of the Disk Utility window, select your internal disk’s boot partition (typically called “Macintosh HD”). On the right-hand side, press the Verify Disk button if it’s not greyed out; if it is greyed out, or if it reports that errors were found, press the Repair Disk button. Once the verification/repair is completed, exit Disk Utility and select Restart from the Apple menu to restart in normal mode. Does it get to the login screen now? -
Disk Repair reported that it could not repair the HD Disk. I am to reformat the disk and restore backed up files. OSX Utilities give me a choice of restoring from time machine backup (which I have on MyPassport) but no information on reformatting the disk, which I assume I have to do first. How do I reformat the HD ...or does the restore from Time Machine do both things?
Boot OS X Recovery and use Disk Utility.
If Disk Utility reported the disk cannot be repaired though, you should replace it with a new one. -
My MacBook Pro recently shut down on me all of a sudden. When I restarted it, it popped up with a gray box with 'OS X Utilities,' then listed various options such as 1. restore from time machine backup, 2. reinstall OS X, 3. get help online and 4. disk utility. what do I do now? I have not backed up to Time Machine in a few days, so I'm not sure I should restore from time machine backup, is there something else I can do? Help!
Guitar21,
your MacBook Pro has booted into its Recovery mode. From the OS X Utilities menu, select Disk Utility. On the left-hand side of the Disk Utility window, select your internal disk’s boot partition (typically called “Macintosh HD”). On the right-hand side, press the Verify Disk button if it’s not greyed out; if it is greyed out, or if it reports that errors were found, press the Repair Disk button. Once the verification/repair is completed, exit Disk Utility and select Restart from the Apple menu to restart in normal mode. Does it get to the login screen now? -
I had to restart by resetting the NVRAM/PRAM. Now I have a window showing OS X Utilities. My options are restore from Time Machine Backup (which I could do), Disk Utility to repair or erase, get help online or reinstall OS X. What should I do? The problem began when I tried to restart my computer and the only thing I saw was the grey screen, Apple logo, and the timer; the computer wouldn't restart from there.
I searched through trouble shooting options on the Apple Support page and was able to make it this far.
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ITunes restore from Time Machine backup
Hi my iMac HD failed and it's been replaced. I've managed to restore all my data from Time Machine backups except my iTunes Library, Aperture Library and iPhoto library. How do I restore the settings, playlists, apps, etc in iTunes from Time Machine?
Thanks!patdpoo wrote:
Hi Chris! I tried the Migration Assistant and it failed. I'm guessing my computer went into sleep mode. I decided to do some deep cleaning and went into Time Machine and only backing up some things I really wanted.
You backed up (added to Time Machine) only certain things or you restored (put back onto yrou HD) only certain things?
If everything is in Time Machine, open it, select the /Music/iTunes/ folder then Restore.
Same with iPhoto and Aperature. -
Help with Restoring from Time Machine Backup with new Hard Drive
Hello. Recently, my hard drive died in my 24" Early 2008 Aluminum iMac. Luckily, I had a time machine backup, and I took it upon myself to replace the 320 GB Hard Drive with a 2 TB Seagate Barracuda disk. The hardware replacement (although difficult) went fine. Now, I'm having a bit of trouble restoring the new drive from my time machine backup. The new disk shows up in Disk Utility with the correct capacity. I formatted the new drive with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using my installation disk. My only problem is that the drive isn't showing up when I am choosing which drive I want to restore my time machine backup onto. I can pick out the backup I want perfectly fine, but I can't find the new drive. Any help?
UPDATE: I restarted it (Classic IT Crowd "Have you tried turning it off and on" moment) and the drive shows up on screen. Right now, I'm waiting for it to "Calculate disk size needed for restore" and I'll keep you posted.
UPDATE 2: Currently restoring. Let's see if it's successful.
Message was edited by: funman895 -
Late 2011 Macbook Pro wont upgrade to Mavericks or restore from time machine backup
I recently tried installing Mavericks on my MBP, but during the installation, it will hang up and restart. I then tried to restore with time machine, same issue. I have used check disk and repair, no issues. I have a boot camp partition on the hard drive as well. When mavericks first came out, I tried to install with the same issues, and I remember recieving an error saying core services couldnt be found. I was able to restore from time machine then.
I have cleared the PRAM, repaired the hard drive, attempted a clean install from a bootable usb, and re-install the OS from the recovery partition with no results. At this point, the mac is a aluminium paper weight.I have 8 GB of RAM, but would that even matter during install? Performance once installed and running sure, but I questiong whether the installer would demand that much more, or why it would affect mountain lion when restoring from a time machine backup.
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Complete restore from time machine backup,
My mac was stolen and cleverly recovered. Basically the thief uploaded all there contact's and used my calender which unknown to them updated to my Mobile Me account. Very lucky! this allowed me to track it down!
Now I have it back I want to restore to my last time machine backup
I don't want to (unless I have to) reinstall the OS as there is nothing wrong with it, but I do just want my Mac back how it was the day it go nicked (I have a backup a few hours before it went)
The thief deleted my account's pictures some software lots of thing.
Thanks for your help on this - Very lucky to get it back!
What a stupid theif lol
A good tip for anybody with mobile me!http://duncandavidson.com/2008/01/restoring-from-time-machine.html
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Hello,
I have not been able to startup my less than one year old MacBook Air (had flashing question mark folder on grey screen and startup manager only appeared once but froze) and so finally managed to do Internet recovery.
Now get 4 options:
Restore from TM backup
Reinstall OS X
Get help online
Disk utility
I'm really new to mac and am wondering why the kind user here who has answered my previous questions has recommended reinstall over restore option? And why not disk utility which says it could repair a disk...although it also says it could erase a disk which sounds pretty scary to me!
Also, am I right in thinking reinstall would be like the reformatting I did on pc, ie will get me back to a 'new' system?
And if I choose this option can I then get the majority of my stuff back from time machine backup on external hd?
Thank you for your help with this.
E.I'm really new to mac and am wondering why the kind user here who has answered my previous questions has recommended reinstall over restore option?
Apparently that was dominic23 and hopefully this person will see this post.
Will not startup...help!: Apple Support Communities
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