Story:
I am enjoying Delius' Brigg Fair as I write a music history paper...I close Itunes when I leave to return a library book. I am back within ten minutes, go to open Itunes, and 75% of my music is gone (including, not only poor Delius, but Wagner, except for some random highlights from Pappano's Tristan, while Furtwangler's was completely wiped out. Parsifal?...gone Die Meistersinger?...gone. Ring Cycle? GONE (as well as just about every other composer's works I had on there)). What can I do!?! I thought I was so smart putting all of my music on the computer as lugging CDs across the nation from home to school was not a very attractive (and I think, safe) proposition.
Can anyone please help me? Is there any way these files can be recovered?
Consider it a hard lesson and move on to better things. ;) :)
You're in college. A computer geek shouldn't be hard to find. (I trust you've tried the obvious file search outside of iTunes?) Also, Apple has a website. Their customer support is atrocious, but the site includes a forum populated by regular folks who freely advise one another on technical issues with Apple products, including iTunes, and many of them know their stuff. As a last resort, you could always try recovery software or a recovery service. If you do recover the missing files, consider backing them up to a separate hard drive. If I were without hard copies of recordings I'd probably have at least two backups!
A virtual record collection! Though seriously - as one moves into the world of files, backup is important (and cheap) - I suppose that is possible in the iTunes world ? I suppose you backup your work files, so why wouldn't you with your music files? Sound (in both meanings) advice from David.
Weird. Did you do a search for those files? They're probably still on your computer.
I'm with Dave and Dave: the files are probably still hiding on your computer somewhere; you might have to re-add them to the library. In the future, having something like a backup hard drive can be helpful: I have 75 GB of classical on my backup!
Also, since you're a student, go to your campus library and check out any CDs you need to get the music back. They won't know if you choose to rip it to your computer... 8)
Highlight "Music" on the left side, then do a search for your missing composers/music. I hope you will find them there.
As someone with ca. 520 GB of ripped music, of which at least 450 are backed up in one hard drive, and 180 backed up in yet another one (:P), I can only second both the value of a backup, and the thought that your files have probably just been deleted from the library, vs. the drive.
Of course, it's still a bit odd, but certainly more plausible than selective deletion from both the disc and the library (presumably the files would've still showed up in the library if the hard drive had gone haywire), unless you're being key-logged, or equivalent.
I had some trouble with around 20 music files which were "lost in translation"* when I converted my library's format from Windows-based to Mac-based, towards accessing it primarily from my Macbook - as I do now. But I both had the reference backup, and the discs themselves to re-rip if necessary, once I located which files (among thousands) were missing. So I had alternatives, even though I manually re-named them. :)
*That is, they apparently contained characters that the Mac didn't like, and simply skipped(!) when re-compiling the library.
"Gotta love Macintosh", etc.
I have recovered the music! Thank you all so much for your help! I searched for the files as suggested and, with the help of my roommate, added it all back to my library.
Thanks again!
That's great news, Wilhelm! Happy listening. 0:)
Make an archive and keep it on a different drive. The next time you really might delete a whole bunch of stuff, and then what will you do?
Recently I found that some music I had thought was in iTunes wasn't there. Maybe I ripped the disc and forgot to put all the works in. The CD was boxed away so it wouldn't be easy to find it to rerip. But then I checked my lossless archive and there it was, all tagged and ready to go. I had forgotten to make an AAC transcode for iTunes, but with the disc already ripped and tagged all I had to do was make the AAC files and drop them in the iTunes folder by composer name.
What I really should do is get a 3rd HD and make a copy of the archive. Losing that would be far worse than losing everything in iTunes. I would have to rerip everything! :o