Help Me Help Myself (iTunes)

[thefourthvine]

Okay, I am fully aware that there is a solution to this somewhere on Google, but I am also aware that the chances of me finding it anytime in the next brief forever are very slim. (Basically, I had a con, which was great and good and wonderful. And then I came back from the con and realized my life is booked for eternity. And also everyone is sick and we are all apparently going to stay that way for roughly the same length of time. I wish there was a rule that illness and busyness were mutually exclusive, but no. Unfair, I say, unfair.)

So. I have a new main computer. Yay! Because of a disastrous third-party software misfire, I used the native Windows file transfer utility to move everything from my old XP computer to my new Windows 7 computer. (Yes, I know Macs are perfect and made of unicorn snot and that using one is basically the same as achieving union with the godhead. This is why I have a Mac laptop. But my main computer cannot be a Mac for work reasons the end.)

In the process, all my music transferred over, and all my iTunes data - play counts and playlists, particularly - transferred over, but iTunes can't find my music. It's not where it used to be. (And the folder in which it lives is locked? I think?) I do not want to lose all that data, because I'm not even sure how to navigate my sprawling music collection without it. On the other hand, iTunes is unusable at this point, which means my iPod is unupdateable, which means I am sad and bereft and pathetic. And Apple of course will not provide me with any support on this front, as I am evil, and Microsoft supporting anything - okay, I'll just stop here while you get the laughter out of your system

And, like I said, I am sure there is a fix for this, and I am also sure sufficient application to Google would tell me what that is. But I'm hoping someone out there already knows what it is. And can tell me. Ideally in steps that can be easily understood by a person on a lot of cough syrup, but at this point I will take helpful links or just basically anything. Even if the answer is that I'm doomed and must do a fresh install of iTunes, that would be useful to know because it would keep me from hoping.

Help? Someone? Please?

FIXED YOU ALL ARE GENIUSES AND I LOVE YOU. Thaaaaaaaaank you!

Comments

[blueraccoon]

I'm not sure how much this will help, but. Your iTunes music playlists and play counts are stored in an XML file that should be in the music folder wherever your music is. You need that XML file in order to keep your play counts and playlists.

In iTunes, if you go to Preferences/Options, and then go to Advanced (and I'm working from a Mac here so it may be slightly different; I don't have my PC handy) there will be a thing that say iTunes media folder location. You can "change" that, and browse to the new folder where your music is. That should point iTunes at the correct folder and have it find your music.

If you have already tried this step, then clearly I am no use whatsoever :(

[cesy]

In fact, using this method, it is possible to move your library onto an external drive, and have iTunes permanently pointing at that drive so you can move computers easily. But having moved it once, I now never have to move it again, so I've forgotten the details. This sounds familiar, though.

[lorax]

I actually JUST moved all mine too and had the same problem. What I ended up having to do was delete the XML and all the extras files from the itunes folder completely, then import the XML with my saved playlists/imported playlists into itunes again, and it worked that times.

Like blueraccoon said above, you have to make sure the preferences are pointing to the right place, but it didn't work unless I did that FIRST, then deleted the XML it had created when I first opened the fresh itunes install, and then imported the correct one.

[florahart]

...This kind of tomfoolery is one of the reasons why I don't use iProducts. Ugh.

(I got nothing. With my nice not-an-iProduct mp3 player, I can tell it to look wherethefuckever for music, and it complies. It has a couple of quirks, but nothing like "can't find anything")

*applies helpful bandaids*



...maybe you should just ask your kid to fix it. He would probably be like, *eyeroll* Mom. Duh. You just swap the widgeyhoo onto the dunderwhatsit, and click-click, boom. in my experience, kids Just Know how the technologies go, and that was true even when mine were LITTLE (funniest example: when my four year old turned on the computer and moved all the games into the start folder such that on boot-up, nothing else could happen until all the games had loaded, leading to his bewildered father calling me going, "HE BROKE THE COMPUTER WITH SOLITAIRE.")

[snacky]

Yes, I know Macs are perfect and made of unicorn snot and that using one is basically the same as achieving union with the godhead.

I have no helpful suggestions! This is just a drive-by amusement!

[pyrrhocorax]

I am pretty sure I have some pages bookmarked on my other computer which tell you how to fix this problem, which I had when moving to an external drive. I won't be able to access them for a few days though (by which time someone else will almost certainly have fixed it for you).

[jadelennox]

I did this last week -- let me mad-google and find out how I did it.

OH I SEE YOU GOT IT YAY.