My whole itunes library vanished twice within 3 months. I'd like to know why.

Question

OK, I counted to 10 and took a deep breath before with writing this. I don't want to come off like a disgruntled
hater, but let's just say that right now I'm not quite a happy camper! Three months ago my iTunes library was
wiped out although in general my computer seems to be running perfectly. At  that time I called Apple and since
my computer is no longer under warranty, I had to pay $55 to ask "why was my iTunes library wiped out" and
to my amazement, no answer could be given. The person even went to his supervisor but still the reason could not be found.
I was told that since they didn't have an answer, I wouldn't be charged for the question but it was on my charge card bill
and that wasn't fun.
My computer simply took it upon itself to create a new blank library and no one knows why? OK, I can live with that
and $55 won't break me but there is a principle involved. Let me also say that Apple did offer to download all the itunes
I bought from the iTunes store but I didn't need that because I had all the songs backed up on an external drive. For $55 I could have
re-purchased the songs anyway! Also: They obviously could not return my original songs that I created on Garageband.
I recreated my library after some time and effort that could have been used doing other things but all was well. It's not just an entertainment thing, it's also a work thing, so it upsets me when it vanishes and no one at Apple knows why, not even the geniuses?
Well today the whole library disappeared again and I'm really annoyed. (iTunes version 9.2.1 on Tiger 10.4.11)
From now on I will not store any songs in ITunes. If I have to burn a CD, I'll transfer the songs from my hard drive to the library, burn them and then delete
them from iTunes. It simple is not a stable place to store songs, especially when there is nothing one can do to prevent this.
This is not a big problem. It's just a pain in the neck. But it makes you wonder ~ Why do things disappear without the user having anything to do with it
and is this glitch confined only to iTunes? I have read about other people who have had the same exact experience. It's not the end of the world, and it does
point out he need to back everything up, but why does it happen? There has to be a common thread that runs through all of the anecdotes from people with the same exact experience. Is Tiger too old to handle iTunes 9.2.1? Is there some secret MB limit that if you go over it, a new library is automatically created? Why doesn't it save the old library? It just doesn't make sense, especially when Apple can't explain why or how to prevent this. As I mentioned, this isn't the end of the world and I don't want make a big thing out it. I just want to know how files can be deleted without the user doing anything to delete them. I feel like I'm not in full control of my computer. I love Apple products and I always will but saying I wouldn't be charged for the call and then charging me anyway doesn't seem very Apple-ish. Their customer service is awesome but this was not right. They did say that I would be charged regardless of whether or not my problem was resolved (and I agreed to that) but when it couldn't be resolved they said they wouldn't charge me. A couple of days later, an iTunes rep e-mailed me the downloads for the the songs I bought which as I mentioned I didn't need because they were backed up but I guess they assumed that was a "resolution" to my problem. They couldn't however return my original songs and although I had them backed up, there were a few that were not and those versions are gone forever. But life goes on. I just won't store songs in iTunes anymore. (deep breath) I still love Apple and all the things I can do with their amazing products. I know I should upgrade my 6 year old iMAC and get Time Machine and Lion and all that jazz but but I just wanna make music
and become a technician. My puter works perfectly and I have 3 ext drives each with 1TB of space. It's iTunes that has a glitch. (imo)

Answer 1

I dislike every iteration of iTunes more & more, in fact almost every iteration of any Apple App is worse than the one before, it's also sad that Apple is evermore closing off the really good 3rd party Apps, I use Audion since Apple bout SoundHam Mp & totally ruinrd it...
http://www.panic.com/audion/
As far as backups go, I gave up on the sillyTime Machine, it seemeed to do it's stuff, but I could never get a good restore!
Every other Backup App I have, (about a dozen or more), always work.
Never bought anything on iTunes, nor am I likely ever to do so.
It's not even my birthday, but your post now has ne listening to Animals by Pink Floyd for the 1st time in years!
Back to your losses, How sure are you the of the Disk integrity?
Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)