Three libraries, three iPods, lost music, empty playlists

My wife, daughter, and I have three iPods and three libraries (we use the option key when starting up iTunes). We store all the music files on an external HD. Today, while cleaning up a bunch of duplicate files/folders from a system reinstall, I deleted all the music files Ouch! Not to worry, I have the iPods and Senuti. If I simply reimport the music, I get ! signs on every track, and empty playlists. With Senuti, I can drag playlists one at a time and they seem to repopulate the existing playlists nicely. But at over 150 playlists per iPod, it's a lengthy process. Can't select more than one playlist at a time in either Senuti or iTunes, and haven't been able to find a helpful Doug's script. Is there a way to speed up this process? After being unable to reassociate the songs in the library with the playlists, I simply deleted my whole library, and am now redragging one playlist at a time. I will do the same with my wife's iPod and then my daughter's, being careful not to sync and overwrite them. My daughter's nano is set to auto-update so I will have to move her library to a different location, I think, so it won't auto-update and delete all her music. Help!
marmer

I haven't used it for awhile but can't you simply
download the playlist without downloading the music?
I wish, but it doesn't seem to work that way. Senuti will let you download the music IN the playlist, but not just the playlist info. Same, AFAICT, with iPodRip.
What I may do is the following:
1. Delete everything (scary).
2. Restore from my iPod first (I'm Dad, mine is biggest!).
3. Duplicate the resulting Library and playlists to a new library for my wife, and rename it.
4. Delete a few playlists she doesn't want and restore the playlists that (she wants but I don't want) from her iPod using Senuti.
5. Repeat for my daughter. She has a nano and not much music, so this will be much faster. Her tastes run to standard pop fare, no classical.
I think, when all is said and done, I will have one Music folder with all the actual MP3s, AACs, and the occasionall AIFF in it, and three libraries corresponding to the three iPods with Library subsets of the total Music folder.
Does that sound about right?
marmer

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http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60983
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Hello!
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Cheers

yea, it worked, thanks
i kinda wish that wasn't default, cause it really confuses the heck out of you XD

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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1495

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robosalsa wrote:
hmmm...I've made Itunes mad.
So I tried the first (disk repair). Messages as follow:
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Permissions differ on "private/etc/postfix/main.cf.default", should be -rw-r--r-- , they are -r--r--r-- .
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That's nothing to worry about.
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+Maybe trashing all of Itunes per http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1224 and then trying to reinstall?+
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Three libraries, three iPods, lost music, empty playlists

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