migrating iTunes, the hard way

[egypturnash]

I'm still moving my data from the old hard drives to the new Powerbook, and trying to retain a lot of the same feel of the system. Today, I realized there was a piece of information I'd lost: the play-counts on my music library, and my various custom playlists!

This was not a huge loss - I got the music itself with no problem- but it still offended me, somehow. Especially because I suspect that using the Apple new machine migration tool would have gotten this for me - but that's not an option, since all I have of the old machine is the hard drives. Nothing for the migration tool to look at over Firewire.

So I did some poking around and looked at a few files, and took a risk. And I got them all. How?

1. Install iTunes on the new machine; get the old hard drive connected externally.
2. Quit iTunes, if it's running.
3. Go into the folder iTunes kept the music on, on the old drive. Usually this would be /Users/username/Music/iTunes/ - it wasn't in my case, because I had my music on a different drive than the user folders.
4. Copy "iTunes Library" and "iTunes Music Library.xml" to the new place - again, probably ~/Muusic/iTunes/ - and overwrite the ones that may be there on a clean iTunes install.
5. Select the old music folder; get info on it. Set it to 'read only' and apply this change to everything inside. Juuuust in case.
6. Start iTunes. It may decide to scan and rebuild the library file; sit back and watch the progress bar and listen to it poke at every music file. (This probably happened because the old machine used iTunes 4.something, while the new one is running 5.whatever.)
7. Advanced > Consolidate Library...
8. Wait for quite a while as it copies every mp3/aac/ogg/whatever from the old drive to the new.

I don't think this would work on a Windows machine, as they refer to drives by letters that relate to where they are in the physical chain of connections. But on a Mac, you refer to drives by their names, and the entire file path happens to be written into the "iTunes Music Library.xml" file along with all the other useful data about the track.

I also have no idea what kind of DRM dance I'd have had to do if I'd bought stuff off the iTunes Store. Probably dig up Hymn and just de-protect them all, to be honest.

And now I can sort my stuff based on the playcount, for whatever that's worth.

Back to fooling with art stuff, I guess.

Comments

[neillparatzo.livejournal.com]

I'll admit drive letters are a little quaint (if concise). But still, Windows NT and higher lets you rename drive letters willy-nilly - it's called the Volume Manager or somesuch.

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

I googled, and found out how to change drive letter assignments in Windows XP. In Programs, Administrative Tools, run Computer Management. Select Disk Management, right-click on the target drive, select Change Drive Letter and Paths, and then Change. It won't let you change your system volume or boot volume, though.

(On my desktop computer, my Windows XP drive ended up as drive F:, which trips up some software which assumes C:. I need to rename it instead of reformatting it, as I lost my Windows XP CD.)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

"Arachnae" is still a lot more memorable than "G"!

Glad this finally reminded you to go dig, though, if it's making your machine work better.

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

I won't be able to find out for a little over a week, as I'll be away from it until then. My laptop works fine, fortunately. :)

[euphoriel.livejournal.com]

You can even mount drives into empty directories, if you so wish. At times I only have a C: drive letter with the others all inside directories where they make sense (especially with my huge data-only drive). I do miss ln though.

[bobguthrie.livejournal.com]

"I also have no idea what kind of DRM dance I'd have had to do if I'd bought stuff off the iTunes Store. Probably dig up Hymn and just de-protect them all, to be honest."

Actually, nothing much, really,... When you buy from the iTunes store, you are allowed to play the same DRM protected tunes on up to three computers,... You would only had to "authorize" your new laptop to play them after the transfer (And that requires just a simple "select+click".)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I thought it was five? Dunno. I like having the option of re-ripping from CD, and of generally not having what I can do with the music redefined later on down the road, so I haven't bought anything from the iTunes Store. I presume there's some way to say that one of the computers that was authorized to play the stuff was now dead, too.