Transferring i-tunes on to a new PC - Issues, anyone been there and done it ?
 

1st up I'm using 64 bit Vista Home Premium

I have had a look at the i-tunes web support and they suggest backing up onto CD or DVD, I've used 12gb so cant be arsed with all the DVD's.

What I did do was copy the i-tunes folder onto my portable HD along with all other folders in "My Documents" and transferred on to the new pc.

As soon as I downloaded i-tunes 8 off it went hunting every WMA AAC on the new pc, I then had most songs in triplicate and decided to abort the transfer and delete the file it was taking them from, later restoring it from the recycle bin.

Also found that i-tunes 8 would not peform basic functions properly such as scrolling, 80% of the list would not move and the last 20% would become a moving blurred image, add to this the title bar is no longer Grey but black and even if you hover the mouse over File, Edit etc you cannot see them, its a click and hope situatio, lastly and the i-tunes wording at the centre top of the screen (above the progress bar) is now rainbow coloured !

I also tried using the i-pod as a transfer device but had issues removing files from the old pc so gave up on that idea.

Will I have to go down the DVD route or is there a more simplistic way to do this.

I now have a fear of fiddling around with this and losing 2500 songs from countless CD's and Artwork I have painstakingly downloaded and attached.

Any advice appreciated as ever.

Thanks

Morning oh monkeh like one :)

DVD route should not be needed, Apple say that as it means they don't have to deal with telling people about external disks and having to format them in a capacity that the Mac can read, blah, blah blah.

If you copied the iTunes folder from C:/Documents and settings/<username>/My Documents/My Music/ then you'll have most, if not all (we'll get to that in a moment) the key files, the main one being the music library files. If you place this folder in the exact same place, which is it's default location, on the new machine, iTunes will find it.

You don't need the actual music files at this point, and if they are not where the database expects, then it will complain when you try and play a song, however, the database info will still be there, which is good.

The next key thing is to make sure your music files are put in the exact same location on the new machine as they were on the old machine. The default location is the iTunes Music folder that is within C:/Documents and settings/<username>/My Documents/My Music/iTunes/, so if that is what you used, fine, it'll be in the iTunes folder you copied over, so you're ok.
If the music was stored elsewhere (hopefully not in many difference places over the disk(s)) then you'll need to either replicate the locations on the new machine, or we'll have to setup the library file again.

One other thing, for this stage, go into the iTune prefs and look for the Advanced section and the "copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to Library" option. Disable this option for the moment.

What we should now have is, on the hard drive, your music in the correct location, the iTunes database files in the correct location, and iTunesi set not to copy files it may find.

You should then be able to simply launch iTunes, if iTunes asks about importing/adding items, say no, and then it should display everything it should and when you double-click on a song it should play it and not moan that it cannot find it.

Now, if it does moan, it probably means the library isn't synching up with the files, so, firstly, as I'm paranoid, unmount and power down the drive you have the music on (you copied it to the hard drive, so we don't need the external right now), this will prevent anything bad from happening. Now, select all the tracks in iTunes and delete them. It will ask you to confirm. It may well also ask if you want to move the files to the trash. say "NO" to this.
What we are doing at this point is removing the references for the files from the itunes library file, we don't want to kill the actual files.

We can now use the "Add to Library" option and point it at the folder containing your music. It won't copy any files as we'd turned that option off earlier, and the files will be there as we didn't move them to trash when we deleted the library references to them.

Now it's time for a cup o tea and a slice o cake, as it'll take a while for it to build the library.

Once it's done it's thing you should have all your music back, and iTunes should be working.

You should probably go back and enable the "copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to Library" option, if you want it on, and I certainly have it enabled on my setup. It does mean that when I add an album I initially have duplicate files on disk, but in different locations, the first being wherever I ripped the files to, the second being in my iTunes Music folder. At this point I simply delete the first set of files.

Any problems, just shout (either here or PM/email me)

also you consolidate your library this where itunes does it all for you.. but only you have enough room on you ipod..

if you get lost i lounge forum is very good..

:notworthy Very comprehensive instructions. I think I will save that info in case I ever have to move my library! :thumb:

Cheers Markus, fantastic explanation, the Don of Apple world as ever :).

Off to bed now, early start for the footy tomorrow morning ;), i'll give it a crack tomorrow evening after work, i'll let you know how I got on

Many Thanks

Excellent stuff, cheers :thumb:

I copied the whole of my iTunes library from my PC to my new laptop over the wireless network and it took AGES! I wouldn't recommend doing it that way :D

I tried doing it that way but I could only find Media Files, I'm not clever enough to "Network" just yet :lol1: but will be looking into in once I've completed setting up the new PC.

Expect that thread some time soon :thumb:

I'm glad my wafflings are of use to people :)

Hi Markus

The transfer went well but I still have the scrolling issue and the black Bar top and botton, as well as being unable to see the progress of the track being played on the centre bar.

Google suggested the following

This had a very strange effect, the entire screen went green, the tabs for the open programmes would not respond, on one ocassion I managed to get the i tunes back up on the screen and the problem had gone, grey bars top and bottom, track progress was visible, even the scrolling issue had gone, so I closed i tune and re opened it to find the issue had returned and when I tried the same procedure again the green screen returned and would only vanuish if I closed the itunes tab down with a right click.

So in short amending the compatibility is hit and miss and seems to rectify the problem only briefly, if you manage it, and the green screen is a worry !!

Any thoughts

Take a copy of the non audio/video files in the iTunes folder, then uninstall iTunes and download and install a fresh copy and see if that makes any difference at all. Hopefully the uninstall won't remove the files you copied, but if it does, well that's why we took a copy.

As I don't use iTunes on a PC I've not seen this issue myself. Any chance of a screenshot before you remove and reinstall?

LOL I did that last night tjhinking it might be a good idea :) highlighted the problem areas with MS Paint and then forgot to upload to photobucket, i'll do it this evening.

Cheers Markus :thumb:

Only thing left to do is Import the wifes itues and settings, spent far too much time messing with i-tunes.......

Sorry for the delay Markus

Finally got a shot up, issues being.....

The Black Bar top and bottom

Scrolling - I have highlighted Muse at the bottom, between the last Led Zep track and the 1st Muse track when I scroll the Muse tracks scroll down but nothing above moves and trasck disapear as a result, if you know what I mean, basically on the bottom 3 scroll everything else is static.

Due to the black bar you cant see the File, Advanced, Edit etc as well as losing the minimise and close buttons

Also you cannot see the progress of the tracks

On one ocassion I plugged the ipod in and everything rectified itself, closed it down and opened again and all the issues were still there.

So it seems it wants to open properly but something is causing these conflicts, any help would be appreciated, I have done untold google searches for a fix but no joy.


Example of black bar and lack of progress showing
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p...0/image001.png

Black bar and other issues, scrolling etc
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p.../ITunesRed.jpg

What theme/style are you using there? Try switching to the default Vista theme and see if you still have problems. It could be that something in the theme is causing iTunes problems.

Hi Markus

Tried that no joy, also forgot to add I down loaded the itunes 64 bit installer, and still remains the same :(

Could the fact I ocassionaly get the following message be a cause "catalyst control centre host application has stopped working" ?


Or it's just one of those things i'll have to suffer with

Cheers

Dave

Oh well after probably 6 hours of fakkin about on the net searching for a fix itunes 8.2 has resolved most of the issues.

Scrolling is still pants none of the artwork shows on "Grid" view and the close and minimise buttons are nowhere to be seen at least the black bars have gone :D