I lost my library after i updated iTunes.

Question

Howdy,
I have been bugged to update my iPod and iTunes software for a long time every time I open iTunes or plug in my iPod. I have tried to update a few times and I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I was reluctant to update iTunes because I was afraid I would lose my library but I did want to update my iPod. So today I finally was able to update my iPod, but after I did the library on iTunes was gone. It didn’t make any sense to me how this happened but I figured as long as it is already emptied my library it would be a good time to update iTunes as well. The update went fine but I am still missing my library. This wouldn’t normally be a big problem but I had over 11,000 songs in my library and it took me months to look through them all and make play lists of my favorite songs and to just select the songs I want on the iPod because it can only fit 7,000 songs. Now I don’t know how I am going to update the songs on my iPod because I would want to add songs to already existing playlists. I tried to restore it how you have told other people by looking in the Previous iTune Libraries but I couldn’t find that folder. I don’t know if it is suppose to be in the iTunes folder that had the iTunes Library and iTunes Music Library files, because if it is I couldn’t find it. I am hoping that perhaps it is in a different location or there could be another way to restore my library. Thanks for your time.
sony PCV-RS320   Windows XP  

Answer 1

Hi, heyjer.
I attempted to load the previous library file, but got a message that is was not a "valid exported file."
Were you following the steps described in this article in the Apple Knowledge Base?