Restoring Library after installing iTunes 7.02

Question

I recently upgraded to 7.02 only to discover that none of my music was anywhere to be found. Dang! Then, of course, I found out that others had had the same problem. When I read the forum entries telling me how to find it in "My Music" and "Previous libraries" folders, etc. I was very frustrated, because the files seemed to have entirely disappeared from my computer. The folder was there, and the iTunes data files were there, but no actual music files were in the Music folder or anywhere else I could find on my computer.
No problem, I thought, I’ll just backload from ipod to computer. Then I read that iTunes does not allow you to reload from your ipod to the computer… **** again!
Then I figured out that even though iTunes wouldn’t facilitate a transfer backward from ipod to computer, it should still be possible, since the ipod is essentially just another hard drive. And it worked. Here are the steps I followed (I use Windows XP). Perhaps they will work similarly for others in the same situation:
1. Connect the ipod to your computer, and close iTunes when it opens. Go to My Computer, then to the ipod. Right click and select “Open as Portable Media Device”. Then open ipod, and find the “Ipod Control” folder, in which you will find a “Music” folder. Inside are folders with names consisting of “F” followed by a number. These contain all the music files.
2. On your computer, go to the “My Music” folder and find the iTunes folder and then the folder called “iTunes Music”. Copy the entire contents of the music folder you found on your ipod to this folder.
3. Then you have to go into the iTunes folder (in your "My Music" folder) and find the data file named “iTunes Library.itl” This is the file that organizes your library in itunes, names them, etc… but it is the new one that 7.0 loaded and replaces all the information you had before. You need to take it out of this folder (I placed it on my desktop for the time being, and changed the name slightly). Then, within the iTunes folder, you’ll see another folder titled “Previous iTunes Libraries”. Open it and there will be a data file there ending with a date and the extension .itl. Change its name to “iTunes Library.itl” and move it out of that folder into the iTunes folder (replacing the one that was there).
4. Now you should be ready to go! Open iTunes, and under “File” select “Add folder to Library”. Then select the folder you have just copied from the ipod. If everything is working right, itunes will retrieve all the information about the files and (unless you tell it not to), even go out and find the album art.
This worked for me for all the cds I had manually loaded; it did not transfer any of the files I had loaded into the ipod from podcasts.
Good luck!
Fujitsu laptop   Windows XP  

Answer 1

easyer just drag directly to itunes (also you have to select show hidden folders in folder options