Question concerning backing up itunes' music's meta data...

That big ole xml file with your music's information contains an absolute reference to your music files. Now if i were to reinstall my OS and somewhere in this process the letter of the drive containing my music files changes, is itunes "smart enough to recognize that this is the same music that is now in another location (specified in itunes preferences)?
If not how then can i backup this information and re-import it so ALL song information is retained in the fresh install? Where my music is stored on a 2nd hard disk.
Is there any way to tell itunes to store the metadata, settings, etc. in another location so i don’t have to ever do all this again?

Hi, gbm2b.
Generally speaking, iTunes isn't smart enough to recognize a song file with a new path reference as being the same one as it was at an old reference.
Although it did get a bit smarter with iTunes 7 in dealing with changes to the reference under limited circumstances, that hasn't been very well documented and I wouldn't expect it to do so in the situation you're describing.
The best suggestion I can offer is to make sure, at least initially, that you replicate the path to the files on the current installation - default settings would be C:\Documents and Settings\User Name\My Documents\My Music\iTunes - on the new installation. (User Name itself remaining the same.)
For some other ideas, have a look at Hudgie's User Tip which deals with transferring music from one computer to another. But that's more or less what you're doing, although to be specific you're transferring music from one computer - in the present - to the same computer - in the future.
Post back with any further questions.
EDIT:
And for iTunes, it's the .itl file that is more important than the .xml file. Make sure to take them both along for the ride.

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Can I get back to iTunes Music after failed external hard drive transfer?

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cgb33,
You can use the Add Folder to Library option as explained in this article in the Apple Knowledge Base.
Note that while this will add the songs themselves to iTunes, playlist and related information will not be included.

Backed up itunes music, library, now songs are missing??

Hey all,
I recently had to restore my laptop to factory specs, which meant I had to remove and re-install my itunes. I made sure before I restored it to back up all my itunes music folder and database/library files to an external hard drive. As I have over 11,000 songs in itunes (~60gb worth), this process took several hours, but I felt sure everything was backed up and I was good to go.
Wrong! When I re-installed itunes, it asked me to choose a library to use, and so I chose the location on my external hard drive, and all was fine until I unplugged it. Then it wouldn't locate any songs. So I re-imported all my songs and playlists over that were on my hard drive, but it's telling me that some songs can't be found. They should be in there but they're not. So I used a 3rd party software app to move the songs from my ipod to a folder on my computer, but they all have weird names (the way ipod organises the songs) and I don't know which song is which.
To make a long story short, after deleting and re-adding my itunes library, I now have 2-3 copies of each playlist (including the standard ones that automatically are in itunes), and 2 copies of several songs, one of which works and the other doesn't.
Since I still don't have several (possibly 100 or more) songs in my itunes that I do have on my ipod, should I just delete the whole itunes and start over?
All I really want is my itunes library back and the info like the original date added, last played, play count and ratings.
Oh, and I'm using itunes 7.5 b/c I tried 8 and didn't like it.
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I have now resorted to uninstalling, redownloading, and reinstalling iTunes again.
That won't fix anything.
If you want everything to stay on the external...
Hold Shift and launch iTunes.
Select *Create library*.
Select a folder on the external.
iTunes will create a new iTunes folder.
Inside this folder will be a folder called "Automatically add to iTunes".
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Question about backing up my music

I have songs in my iTunes music folder that I don't reguarly listen to and so I don't have them in the playlist. I am wanting to back up all of my music but am unsure if the songs in the folder that are not in my playlist will also be backed up. Any help would be wonderful, thank you.

Here is a background article on the iTUnes library files - does that clear things up for you?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93732
Also, be warned - using iTunes to backup your library does NOT back up purchased audiobooks.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302392
+Spoken programs purchased from the Audible.com website are not backed up.+

How to back up iTunes music so it can be re-imported with Info intact?

After downlaoding latest i Tunes [how I hate to see that notification, "new version available"], lost a whole load of tracks and all Playlists. DOUBLE BAH!!
Took days to sort out problems with iTunes, but done now. [Not before I joined "iTunes *****" - does anybody who uses i Tunes not hate the awful software??]
However, this is not the first time apple software has lost tracks and data. ... [I know, everyone seems to have it happen!] so, ....
I back all my music up on seperate Hard Drive, but when i reimport, it has lost all track info, and, INFURIATINGLY, most tracks have a numeral before the name, which screws up the filing, as u get:
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Means I have to rename and re-enter Info for EACH individual bl**ding track.. aaaargh...!!
So is there any way one can back up I pod tunes files so they contain the necessary data to re-import cleanly, I wonder?
Be very keen to get feedback
best
13richjenn

You may get better response, if you post your iTunes issues in the iTunes community forum.

Backing up iTunes music

I have an external hard drive I'm using to backup my iTunes music. If, for some reason, my computer hard drive crashes and I lose all that music, can I transfer my music from the external hard drive to a new computer without problem? I don't know if there's usage rights or something. Thanks.

If you have any purchased songs and your computer crashes before you have a chance to deauthorise it, you'll need to reauthorise the new installation before the purchased tracks you transfer back can be played: About iTunes Music Store Authorisation and Deauthorisation
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OK - I have a fairly large library and probably 50% of it has meta-data that when pulled up automatically I leave (this is for the bulk, but not all of non-classical genres) as is post import and/or purchase from itunes. Now, here is the enchilada:
I am a big classical music listener and m constantly tweaking my library to make it as easy as possible to organize classical music - I still don't have it perfected as there isn't a standard - there are many standards and many are based on how you want to prioritize/search for things: I use composer as the "main" field to search(I have it as Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus as opposed to just Mozart or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) and then I also search by Artist as a secondary way which is fine should I want to focus on a conductor or a string quartet, etc.
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hearand I do it by last name, first name

Based on what I have been seeing over at the Macworld forums, Genius does not play too well with classical music and the situation is really bad if the user modifies any fields to their liking. Using the ISRC code would make more sense, as it is something the user cannot modify and to rely on user-definable fields would result in many libraries being crippled in terms of the new feature.
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Question about backing up iTunes library to hard drive

So I was looking at getting a MacBook Pro, and was going to buy an external hard drive (WD My Passport for Mac) to transfer the files to the new computer. I was wondering if my movie / digital copies will go to the external hard drive as well as music & everything. Also how would I go about doing the transfer, I'm sure it will be pretty easy to figure out just want to make sure everything goes to the new computer.
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it may not be necessary to get an external HD, although you could use it for back up purposes.
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JGG

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Hi, I had to restore my MacBook Pro to factory settings, and I moved my iTunes Music library to an external hard drive by copying the music folder (180 GB), and now I want to copy that folder again to iTunes, that has no info, its all clean.
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THe same thing happened to me when My laptop crashed last semester. I had to replace the hard drive and a whole mess of stuff... anyway...
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Alienware PC Windows XP Pro

will it delete all my iTunes music & songs and reload my iPod?
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Current search engine is being replaced with Google Search Appliance (GSA). It requires meta data to be separated by a comma + space, whereas the previous search engine required only a space. For example:
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================================
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When I tried to reinstall iTunes (9.2.1) library from my external hard drive to a newly installed iTunes 10 on a new HDD, I noticed my play count, ratings, and EQ settings weren't present. Well, the new HDD was a bust in lease than 24 hours. I took out the new busted HDD and put my old HDD back in to my computer with iTunes and upgraded to iTunes 10. . . so I could finally play with my new Touch 4g. I'm getting another new HDD today; I'm going to back-up my iTunes 10 library and then move them to the new HDD.
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Thanks Josef!
I followed your suggestion. there was no drop-down for aac protected audio file so I typed it in.
Nothing was is the new playlist when I hit OK.
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Question concerning backing up itunes' music's meta data...

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