Backed up music won't restore after 10.5 Upgrade!!!

So I was extremely careful to make sure I had all my stuff backed up before I upgraded. Especially since Leopard forced me to do a clean install and I don't know why.

Anyway, I used the program "backup" that comes with apples protection program to backup my entire home folder. I also created a disk image.

Well after doing the clean install, I boot up the disk image to find out that none of my music is on there. All the organizing folder like artist and album are there, but no music at all.

Ok, next thing I open up backup and try to restore my entire itunes music folder. It says none of the files can be restored, there was an error restoring.

In itunes every single one of my files are there, but when I try to play them it says the file cannot be located.

This is really concerning me, I don't want to loose all of my music. I thought I was safe by doing what I thought was double backing it all up.

What should I do?

Thanks for help in advance,
Jake

Welcome to Mac-Forums, jeepinjake.

When in iTunes, if you right-click once on a song and select Show in Finder in the drop-down menu, where does it take you? Does it show you the original file? Is it usable?

For backing up your music, you could also have simply gone to your user account's Music folder and drag and drop to an external hard drive your iTunes folder.

I think using Backup as an overall backup solution wasn't the right choice: from what I know, Backup.app is mainly for .Mac use, not sure it would work as a regular backup solution. I know you can use it to backup your Address Book contacts, Safari bookmarks and such but iTunes music? IMO, you would have been much better off using SuperDuper! as it perfectly clones your internal hard drive to an external hd.

I could be wrong about Backup.app though. We'll see what other members have to say about it.

When I get info, it says the songs original file could not be located.

And I know my songs are there in the backup files, because the file size is huge and the only thing that took up so much space on my HD before was the music. Also, in the backup program there was a specific option to backup the itunes music folder, and that is what I used. Maybe if I took it to the Apple store they would know how to retrieve the music files?

No, don't choose Get Info but Show in Finder, it's not the same thing at all. Show in Finder shows you where the actual file is located.

I only use it to backup my bookmarks and Address Book info to store on my .Mac account. I've never had to use Backup in reverse to get a file from it so unfortunately I can't help here, sorry.

Jeep,

I have the exact same problem in that I completely backed up my Home folder prior to doing a Erase and install to 10.5. When I attempted to restore all of my folders after a clean install of 10.5, all I get is a "restore failed" message. I emailed .Mac support and got the following response. Please note, that I have not yet tried what they have suggested, so I'm not sure if it will work. Hope it helps.



Dear Michael,

I apologize for the delay in answering your request for support. I understand that you are not able to restore backups created using Backup 3.1.2 in Mac OS X 10.4.10 on an external drive now that you've installed Mac OS X version 10.5. I'm sorry for any frustration this has caused.

As a workaround, you can open the .IncrementalBackup package and access those individual files.

Retrieving items from a package is fairly straightforward. You may be able to retrieve the contents of the package and manually restore your files.

To open a package:

1. Hold the Control Key and Click on the package that you wish to open. Note: If you have a two-button mouse, this same step can be accomplished by right-clicking the package.

2. Select Show Package Contents from the shortcut menu that appears.

3. A new window will appear. There will be a folder named Contents.

4. Select View > As Columns from the View menu in the Finder Menubar.

5. Open the Contents folder.

6. Open the second Contents folder inside the Contents folder.

7. Locate the Backup.sparseimage file. This is where the contents of your Backup is located.

8. Decompress the Backup.sparseimage by double clicking it.

9. This will create an uncompressed disk image named after your Backup Plan. It will appear on your desktop and in your Sidebar as a white hard disk.

10. Browse the contents of the uncompressed Backup Plan Disk Image and verify that the items you backed up are there. Backed up items will be in nested folders that recreate their original location in your local file system.

11. You may wish to manually copy any items that you wish to restore to your Desktop or any other desired location.

For more information about Packages in Mac OS X, please see the following article:

Useful Mac OS X Terms: What is a Bundle?:
http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n43135

For more information about Copying files in the Finder, please see the following article:

Using copy and paste to copy files and folders:
http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n151946

Remember to read Backup Help articles for instructions on restoring contents of an iPhoto or iTunes Library.

Sincerely,

Fred
.Mac Support

http://www.apple.com/support/dotmac/
http://www.mac.com/learningcenter/

fyi...works just like the .Mac tech says. NICE!

hm, ya i tried it to and to my partial relief it does work. However, I have several backups, and different files are on each backup. So I don't know an easy way to keep them all organized when I import them back to itunes.

Interesting fix! Will bookmark this thread!

this is what I did and it worked. Would this have helped you?

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=530096&postcount=9