How to restore library after hard drive reformat?

Hello, I am going to reformat my Mac Pro's boot drive, and I want to make sure my iTunes library remains intact (I'm using iTunes 12).
I keep my iTunes music files on a 2nd internal hard drive, in a folder that I titled "iTunes Folder". I also plan to reformat this internal hard drive.
I have backups of both drives on an external hard drive. I'm assuming that in order to restore my iTunes library, playlists, etc., to their current state, I simply need to a) restore the user/Music/iTunes folder to its current state and b) restore the "iTunes Folder" to my 2nd internal drive. Is that correct? Or is there a different way that it should be done?
Thanks.

Our hard drive crashed completely and we installed a completely new hard drive. My sister and I both shared the same library for our Videos. She plugged her's into the computer and all the music was erased almost immediately. How can I plug my ipod in with out having the music and other files erased??? Is there any way I can transfer music from my ipod onto her's??

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Restore Library after hard drive format

I had to reformat my Windows hard drive and, of course, then I had to restore my Itunes Library. My music files are stored in a different HD so, I didnt have to back them up. I restored my library using the method described in this page article http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93313.
It worked fine, but now all my play counts are gone. How can I have them back? I have all my playlists, even the song ratings, but no play counts. Did I do something wrong? I haven't sync'ed my iPod yet, som I still have my play counts in it.
Thanks for your help.

Our hard drive crashed completely and we installed a completely new hard drive. My sister and I both shared the same library for our Videos. She plugged her's into the computer and all the music was erased almost immediately. How can I plug my ipod in with out having the music and other files erased??? Is there any way I can transfer music from my ipod onto her's??

How to restore itunes after hard drive crash

How do you restore your itunes library after my PC hard drive crashed?

Hi Toboggan,
If you are looking to restore your iTunes data from a backup, you may find the following article useful (while it is focused on moving between computers, many of the steps should also apply to your situation):
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Regards,
- Brenden

Updating iTunes library after hard drive reformat

Is there a way to upload songs from an iPod to the iTunes library? I had to reformat my hard drive and was able to upload purchases, but I would like to upload all songs on my iPod as opposed to reloading all the CDs.

For everything else (music from CDs, other downloads etc.) there are a number of third party utilities that you can use to retrieve the music files and playlists from your iPod. You'll find that they have varying degrees of functionality and some will transfer movies, videos, photos, podcasts and games as well. You can read reviews and comparisons of some of them here:
Wired News - Rescue Your Stranded Tunes
Comparison of iPod managers
A selection of iPod to iTunes utilities:
TuneJack Windows Only (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
SharePod Windows Only (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod2PC Windows Only
iDump Windows Only
YamiPod Mac and Windows
iPod Music Liberator Mac & Windows
Floola Mac & Windows
iPodRip Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Music Liberator Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
Music Rescue Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iGadget Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iRepo Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Access Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
TouchCopy Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
There's also a manual method of copying songs from your iPod to a Mac or PC. The procedure is a bit involved and won't recover playlists but if you're interested it's available on page 2 at this link: Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer - The Definitive Guide
I would also advise that you get yourself an external hard drive and back your stuff up, relying on an iPod as your sole backup is not a good idea and external drives are comparatively inexpensive these days, you can get loads of storage for a reasonable outlay: Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive

How do I unactivate after hard drive crash?

Just purchased an upgrade to CS6 Photoshop from CS3 Photoshop but hard drive crashed before I could uninstall it. How do I deactivate after hard drive crash? Do I need to or can I just load my full CS3 copy and then upgrade it to my new CS6?

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How can I sync iPod Mini after hard drive reformat?

My son has an iPod mini. Recently, we had to have our computer hard drive reformatted and had to reinstall iTunes. When we try to sync the mini, it shows up with all it's songs, but the songs won't update into the library, so the desktop iTunes has nothing in it. Anyone able to help me with this? I'm sure it's an easy fix but for now I'm at a loss. Thanks in advance for any help you can shed on this.

Welcome to Apple Discussions.
Sounds like you have to transfer the songs from the mini back to the computer first.
Check this thread: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=797426#797426
Before there is a next time, consider backing up the songs on your computer on CD-R or DVDR or external hard disk before doing a reformat.

How to restore my old hard drive into a new hard drive using my time machin

My HD in my Mac Book died. Thank to the apple care Apple change it to me.
Now I have a new HD with nothing on it.
How do I use the backup in the Time Machine to restore my old hard drive?
As far as what I knew I am supposed to have all my old data, applications, and more by doing something with Time Machine.
Thanks

hi,
i have been through this. First if apple techs replaced the drive you do have something on the drive. your internal drive can boot the machine although your user settings, network settings and third-party software applications are net set up.
here's what you do.. connect the time macine drive and turn it on. now boot your macbook. watch the 'welcome movie' and don't panic. you will recieve setup instructions from the macbook. you will of course designate the system language to be english. Now an option screen will appear. there are options for setting up the new computer include using a firewire cable and transfering stuff from another macbook. ignore that option. you will see an option to restore settings from a time machine drive. bingo! choose that.
get the transfer started and go away. usb restoration of big internal harddrives by time machine is **** slow. (it should be slow for alot of technical reasons. don't blame apple.)
make sure you have the macbook plugged into an electrical outlet, not running off battery because this can be an overnight process.
so now you're good to go

Restore saved iPhoto library after hard drive repair

My hard drive crashed and Apple were kind enough to repair it although it happened 1 week after the extended warranty expired. I was able to save the hard drive files to an external drive just before it died, but now when I try and import the iPhoto library back into the newly repaired computer one of 2 things happen: The photos begin to transfer and then the application (iPhoto) unexpectedly quits, or, the blue bar at the bottom says Working and nothing happens for as long as 10 minutes.
I would really appreciate some help as I no longer have covered support. One of the photo text files may be corrupted. How do I identify the problem file?
Thanks very much,
Colin Sieff

That's because importing from another iPhoto Library folder isn't the way to restore an iPhoto Library. I'm surprised you were able to do it without a bunch of warning dialogs.
If you still have the original iPhoto Library folder intact, the thing to do is restore it as I've described earlier. If you have sufficient disk space, quit iPhoto and drag the existing iPhoto Library folder from Pictures to the desktop. Then drag your backup iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, and the only thing left to do is to start iPhoto. If all's well, move the desktop copy of the iPhoto Library folder to the trash, then empty the trash.

Restoring iTunes Library after hard drive failure.

So a few days ago I had to re partition my hard drive (erase all the data) because I received an unfixable problem from Finder error 10810. The problem created overlapping files on my hard drive which was able to be solved by doing a repair disk from Disk Utility. So I made sure I had a backup of all my information on my iMac, and erased the hard drive and re-installed Snow Leopard. After the installation was complete I began restoring all the files I had from Time Machine, but when I got to my iTunes library I received the error message saying that "You cannot access the iTunes folder because you are not authorized". So if anyone can help me out with this that would be great, I tried calling Apple but i'm not willing to pay the ridiculous $50 fee to speak to a human being.

I'm trying it file by file, because I don't need everything back on my hard drive but things like my iTunes Library I want. And I did use a different username when doing the setup assistant, but I thought about that and went back and re-named my current account and then went into my backup files and set all the sharing permissions to Read and Write for all accounts.

Restoring iTunes library after hard drive crash

The hard drive on my Macbook pro (mid-2009) crashed. I took it to the genius bar for a diagnostic. The drive was physically fine so they wiped it and reinstalled Mavericks, which is now running 10.9.4. I am restoring user files from Time Machine individually to keep things clean. Hooray!
I'm now running iTunes 10.3.1. Years ago, I placed the iTunes library in Users>Shared on the hard drive, so my wife could access the files when she logged in. We don't need to do that now, so today I dragged all the music files from Time Machine to the "Music" section on the iTunes window.
They seem to have installed and indexed fine, but I lost some of the original data--like date added and numbers of plays--which would be nice to have. (Then all now read as installed today with zero plays.) My playlists are all gone as well; I'd like to have them back.
Is there any way to restore the music so those things stay intact, by basically making my library the way it was?
I considered dragging the entire set of folders over from the Shared section of Time Machine, but was afraid the music would not index, and the folder structure and nomenclature was different (for example, it had iTunes Music instead of iTunes media and there were a couple other anomalies). I imagine this is because the Shared library was set up under a different version of iTunes.
I hope this doesn't further complicate things but my user name was changed at the genius bar (from what it was prior to crash); they added my last name to my user name. I didn't notice till I got home. So far I have had no trouble accessing the files I have dragged in (Numbers, Word, etc), but don't know if the permissions on the music files might be affected.
All help greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Answers to all your questions are in the links below:
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
iTunes 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847 - plus supplemental information about organizing to new structure https://discussions.apple.com/message/26404702#26404702
Image of folder structure and explanation of different iTunes versions (turingtest2 post) - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7392 and making an iTunes library portable.
06/2014 ChrisCA post: Restore iTunes library from Time Machine backup - https://discussions.apple.com/message/26104480#26104480

Restoring iPhoto library after hard-drive crash

I lost my entire hard drive on my iMac and had to physically replace it. I recovered all my files from Carbonite, but didn't notice until it was too late that there were errors restoring my iPhoto library. When I open iPhoto '11, the iPhoto library doesn't show any of the 43,000 photos (that includes thumbnails, "faces" files, etc. that were on my old library).
If I search my "Macintosh HD" drive for all ".jpg" files, I can see them all. They are all in a file path that is "Pictures/iPhotoLibrary/Masters."
But when I open iPhoto and select "import to library" and then search for the photos or the Masters folder, it doesn't see it. When I try to do a work-around by selecting the files individually and telling the computer to use iPhoto to open them, it says that I can't open the files because they're already part of the library.
I can't seem to find a solution to this exact question. Any ideas out there?

You can try 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.
But if this fails you'll need to accept that your back up is faulty and you'll need to make a new Library and start over from scratch.
Regards
TD

How Do I Restore iPod after Hard Drive Failure?

I have an iMac G4 desktop that is 3 years old. 1 week ago I had a serious hard drive and had to replace the hard drive.
I have an iPod and when I tried to move music from the iPod into the new drive, the iMusic program said that the program only supported the previously registered iPod.
I think my iPod can't recognize the new hard drive (or vice versa.
How do I restore music from the iPod to the new hard drive? I have read iPod support article 300173 about moving music to a new computer. It doesn't help me because I can't do the first step of connecting to the old computer (hard drive) since its dead.
Also the iPod is a 30 GB unit and I have 9.81 GB of space left.

Try Senuti.
It's a program that transfers music from iPod to iTunes on a Mac.

How do I restore Lion after Hard Drive Crash?

My MacBook's hard drive failed recently. It was easy enough to pop in my SnowLeopard DVD and restore the lastest Lion TimeMachine backup. I was up and running in no time. Easy.
My question is what is the proper procedure in the era of Lion? This method only restores the main partition. What about the Recovery Partition? I'm assuming that could come in handy... you know, to repair the partition or disk permissions if needed, right?
I'm sure it's not as hard as I am making this out to be. If you could please point me in the right direction online, I would be very grateful. My googling skills aren't up to the task, apparently.

GRRR!!!
My apologies for cluttering up the threads. I didn't know how to word it, I guess.
Here is my answer:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15899240#15899240
Thanks Kappy!

Restoring Photos after Hard Drive Crash

I had upgraded my standard 80 GB hard drive to an aftermarket 120 GB hard drive in Feb. The new hard drive just crashed, but fortunately a week after I had run Backup so I'm ok. The hard drive is under warranty, but in the meantime I'm restoring as much as I can to my old 80 GB hard drive.
iTunes is working great but my problem is with iPhoto. I restored the photos from Feb-Dec to the iPhoto Library on my old/current hard drive, but none of those photos (post Feb) are showing up in iPhoto 6. The photos are there, I can see them if I navigate to them in finder. Is there a way to tell iPhoto to refresh or something???

Doug
It does sound like your db is corrupted.
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 back.
3. If neither of these work then you'll need to create and populate a new library.
To create and populate a new library:
Note this will give you a working library with the same Roll 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

Magically Restored Files after Hard Drive Replacement? Confused...

Ok so I don't really need help, but I'm confused as to how this is possible.
Okay, so my backyard got struck by lightning a week ago. My Macbook Pro was working fine after the strike until like 2 days later when it started kernel panicking on start up and wouldn't boot OS X. Took it to the genius bar, they said they probably needed to replace the logic board. 5 days later, I go to pick it up and they said they had to replace the logic board, hard drive, superdrive, and some other cables inside. I asked if my data was lost, and they said they tried to restore it but they couldn't and recommended to go to an outside tech person to try to recover it if it was really important but didn't recommend it because it would be very expensive because they would have to essentially rebuild the hard drive. I was upset because they said they would call me if they had to replace the hard drive and I was never notified. The guy felt bad for me, so they let me keep my old hard drive instead of sending it back to apple for investigation or whatever. So I leave the Apple store, and turn on my computer to make sure it works and lo and behold all my stuff is there. I checked to make sure documents worked and all my music and photo files opened correctly.
So I am happy that I didn't lose anything, but very confused as to how a replaced hard drive contains my old data when the Apple store said they couldn't get it back. And I still don't know what is on the hard drive they gave me. I'm pretty sure they actually did the replacement because I signed a sheet stating that they did so.
So could the apple store have just been confused? i've been trying to figure it out and can't understand how all my stuff is magically back. and i don't know what to do with the hard drive that they gave me. any thoughts on my magically reappearing files?

Hi r,
I suspect neuro is correct, but if you're still curious, one more thing you could do is purchase a connector or enclosure for the HD they said is your old one, and see if it will mount when connected to another Mac. If so, open it and check it out to see if it really is.

How to restore library after hard drive reformat?

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