iTunes HELP!!!

newmug

Hi all. I really need help with this.

I had Windows Vista on my laptop, and I wanted to upgrade it to W7. So I backed up everything onto an external harddrive, including iTunes and my thousands of songs. I then went ahead and installed W7, which wiped my laptop clean in the process. Its ok though, everything is on my external harddrive.

Then, my ipod was stolen. I got an ipod touch instead, with the intention of loading it up with all my old ipod stuff onto it from itunes. So my mission now is to get itunes off the harddrive, put it onto my laptop, and transfer everything onto my new ipod touch.

But for whatever reason, this isnt working. It seems that when I plugged my new ipod into my laptop, a newer version of iTunes automatically downloaded. This has none of my songs in its library. It seems to be superceeding my original version of itunes.

Whenever I tried to open my original itunes, a message came up saying that I needed to install Quicktime. I did that, and now its saying "the file itunes libraray.itl cannot be read because it was created by a newer version of itunes"!

What should I do?

guil

just import it all into itunes again and then sync

**Timbuk2**

If you copy all of your music into the correct folder, e.g. Users/yourname/My Music/iTunes/Music (I think that's it) then they should appear in iTunes.

newmug

RIGHT! Here's the situation. All my saved itunes files are coming up as .xml files. When I put them into the current version of itunes, it wants them as .itl files to work. How do I get around this obstacle?


At least they're still saved **sigh of relief**

newmug

RIGHT AGAIN! Another update. I googled my problem, and found out how to "choose libraries". I opened itunes, choosing the .xml library. All my songs are now showing up in itunes! But when I click on any to play them, it says "cannot locate file - would you like to locate it?" When I click yes, it just brings me back to the itunes music folder, where all these files are stored as .xml files. It seems all thats stored are the names of songs. Where do I go from here?

newmug

Bump.

yoyo

newmug wrote: »

RIGHT AGAIN! Another update. I googled my problem, and found out how to "choose libraries". I opened itunes, choosing the .xml library. All my songs are now showing up in itunes! But when I click on any to play them, it says "cannot locate file - would you like to locate it?" When I click yes, it just brings me back to the itunes music folder, where all these files are stored as .xml files. It seems all thats stored are the names of songs. Where do I go from here?

I think iTunes uses full directory path names in the xml files to the songs. So you will need to move the folder from the external into your music folder. Also if your computer user name has changed (ie if on vista it was user, now its newmug for e.g.) you will need to edit the xml file with a text editor to change references from C:\Users\user\... to C:\Users\newmug\... This should make the files play again. I don't think iTunes can automate this process, there may be more efficient ways around it

Nick

newmug

UPDATE: SUCCESS!

I tried what you lads suggested, and a myriad of other things I found on the net. I had to re-install iTunes a few times, delete libraries etc., basically I did a lot of messing and I'm not sure how I ended up where I am, but I now have all the songs that were stored on my harddrive successfully imported into itunes. Wayhey!

I think how I did it was, I opened iTunes, clicked on file, then add folder to libraray, then I picked out the entire iTunes folder from the harddrive.

So I have all my songs back. Phew! However, yesterday I had all my playlists, but now I dont. And I still cant get the .xml file to import. Also, iTunes is calling itself "iTunes1". I'd like to be able to resurrect my playlists without having to manually go through thousands of songs again, and seeing as I had them intact yesterday, but without the music, and today I have the music without the lists, I think that this is very do-able. Any more suggestions?

newmug

UPDATE x2: ONLY PARTIAL SUCCESS!

I need to have the harddrive hooked up to my laptop for iTunes to play my songs:mad::mad::mad: WTF?

So, I'm going to try and sync my ipod while itunes is accessing my songs from my harddrive, then hopefully I can put the songs from my ipod back into itunes. If that doesnt work, I will still have my songs on the harddrive.

Also, wth "purchased" playlist isnt showing any of the songs I purchased. Can I recover that playlist from my account?

yoyo

newmug wrote: »

UPDATE x2: ONLY PARTIAL SUCCESS!

I need to have the harddrive hooked up to my laptop for iTunes to play my songs:mad::mad::mad: WTF?

So, I'm going to try and sync my ipod while itunes is accessing my songs from my harddrive, then hopefully I can put the songs from my ipod back into itunes. If that doesnt work, I will still have my songs on the harddrive.

Also, wth "purchased" playlist isnt showing any of the songs I purchased. Can I recover that playlist from my account?

Copy the music folder over from hard disk into your music folder under "Your Name/My Music". Then point itunes to this folder. It sounds like itunes rebuilt the database on external hard disk only.

Nick