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Possible Catastrophic Drive Failure (External)
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<blockquote data-quote="Deckyon" data-source="post: 1222800" data-attributes="member: 197651"><p><strong>Quick Update</strong></p><p></p><p>After making sure I was getting backups again with Time Machine, I have started working on restoring my iTunes media (movies, books, music, audiobooks, apps). For anyone who may possibly run into this issue in the future, I will post what steps I have taken to get the media back in place.</p><p></p><p>This has been a stressful week for me. I had a ton of money in iTunes with Audiobooks, Music, Apps and some movies and TV shows. To lose them would cripple me and to replace them would break me... </p><p></p><p><strong>1.</strong> Make a copy of your iTunes library directory in your profile. I zipped mine and deleted the files forcing iTunes to create new library files. This way, you will not damage your previous settings.</p><p><strong>2.</strong> Use some kind of tool to recover the files from the hard drive. I used Data Rescue 3 (mentioned above) to scan my HD and recover the files to the new external drive. This will take some time and you will get files with some very weird file names. Unfortunately Data Rescue 3 (and all the others) cannot bring the directory structure back from the grave.</p><p><strong>3.</strong> Open and update (if needed) iTunes before trying to add back any media. I sat at this step for 3 days, afraid to continue even though I was hopeful. I didnt want to deal with the disappointment of having to manually rename and organize just short of 50,000 files.</p><p><strong>4.</strong> Go through the recovery data and separate out the different file types. DR3 will do a decent job, but you want to make sure all your iTunes files are in one directory structure. I had a Movies dir, TV Shows dir, Apps Dir and Books dir. The books will end up under a "documents" directory in the restore area. You need ".epub" files and the ".pdf" files as well (if you added PDFs into your library.)</p><p><strong>5.</strong> I started iTunes and went to the preferences to make sure the Media folder was pointing to the same directory as before. Also make sure you have "Copy files to folder" and "Let iTunes manage media" checked.</p><p><strong>6.</strong> I went to "Add Folder to Library" and selected the Books for the initial test. Low and behold my eBooks were pulled into iTunes, renamed to the proper name and put in the right directory. The relief was intense and felt good. iTunes really did pick up on the metadata in the file and used it during the import phase to recreate the structure.</p><p><strong>7.</strong> I then did the same for my Movies, TV Shows and iOS Apps. iTunes picked up on all the metadata from those as well. I had to redownload some of the apps, but hey, 15 downloads is certainly better than 475.</p><p></p><p><strong>Pause: </strong> Now, that is nearly all the stuff I needed with the exception of my Music and Audiobooks. The thing with that is they were the most data and largest number of files. As I am typing this, iTunes is importing my music and audiobooks. I will update later on how successful this went.</p><p></p><p><strong>Note: </strong>Since some things got deleted more than once (from the initial time I copied all the media to the MBP's HD so I could format the external and then copy back to the external) and when I was trying something else and was moving large chunks of media back and forth, I had duplicates of some files, creating duplicates in iTunes. No biggie, just had to go through and delete the dupes (and the files). I expect the same will happen when I get all the music and audiobooks imported.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Deckyon, post: 1222800, member: 197651"] [b]Quick Update[/b] After making sure I was getting backups again with Time Machine, I have started working on restoring my iTunes media (movies, books, music, audiobooks, apps). For anyone who may possibly run into this issue in the future, I will post what steps I have taken to get the media back in place. This has been a stressful week for me. I had a ton of money in iTunes with Audiobooks, Music, Apps and some movies and TV shows. To lose them would cripple me and to replace them would break me... [B]1.[/B] Make a copy of your iTunes library directory in your profile. I zipped mine and deleted the files forcing iTunes to create new library files. This way, you will not damage your previous settings. [B]2.[/B] Use some kind of tool to recover the files from the hard drive. I used Data Rescue 3 (mentioned above) to scan my HD and recover the files to the new external drive. This will take some time and you will get files with some very weird file names. Unfortunately Data Rescue 3 (and all the others) cannot bring the directory structure back from the grave. [B]3.[/B] Open and update (if needed) iTunes before trying to add back any media. I sat at this step for 3 days, afraid to continue even though I was hopeful. I didnt want to deal with the disappointment of having to manually rename and organize just short of 50,000 files. [B]4.[/B] Go through the recovery data and separate out the different file types. DR3 will do a decent job, but you want to make sure all your iTunes files are in one directory structure. I had a Movies dir, TV Shows dir, Apps Dir and Books dir. The books will end up under a "documents" directory in the restore area. You need ".epub" files and the ".pdf" files as well (if you added PDFs into your library.) [B]5.[/B] I started iTunes and went to the preferences to make sure the Media folder was pointing to the same directory as before. Also make sure you have "Copy files to folder" and "Let iTunes manage media" checked. [B]6.[/B] I went to "Add Folder to Library" and selected the Books for the initial test. Low and behold my eBooks were pulled into iTunes, renamed to the proper name and put in the right directory. The relief was intense and felt good. iTunes really did pick up on the metadata in the file and used it during the import phase to recreate the structure. [B]7.[/B] I then did the same for my Movies, TV Shows and iOS Apps. iTunes picked up on all the metadata from those as well. I had to redownload some of the apps, but hey, 15 downloads is certainly better than 475. [B]Pause: [/B] Now, that is nearly all the stuff I needed with the exception of my Music and Audiobooks. The thing with that is they were the most data and largest number of files. As I am typing this, iTunes is importing my music and audiobooks. I will update later on how successful this went. [B]Note: [/B]Since some things got deleted more than once (from the initial time I copied all the media to the MBP's HD so I could format the external and then copy back to the external) and when I was trying something else and was moving large chunks of media back and forth, I had duplicates of some files, creating duplicates in iTunes. No biggie, just had to go through and delete the dupes (and the files). I expect the same will happen when I get all the music and audiobooks imported. [/QUOTE]
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