Dear Gurus: HELP w/ deleted & recovered music library :(

[Batalanto!]

Dear All...Spent several days going through my library of music: deleted songs I didn't like, updated album art, corrected file path, file name, details, moved them to proper albums and just about everything involved in having a very well-managed collection. THEN, thinking I was deleting music files on an external hard drive, I accidentally deleted all the music files on my actual laptop instead. All my music was located under a file appropriately titled "Music". The recovery software I have used, rather than simply identifying that "Music" file by name and then listing all the subfiles (albums) beneath it, has results listed in a very scattered list. First question: have any of you worked with recovery software for your music that has been really easy and concise in its results?

Fortunately,I did indeed have all my music backed up to Google music...so to speak. It was all the music I had in my library but prior to all the renaming, tagging, moving, etc I spent hours doing before the deletion. Question #2. Media Monkey still lists the library/music as it was before the deletion. To make things easier and to save time, is there a way that I can use Media Monkey to change the current state of my music to match the way it was previously organized? So, rather than running a fresh scan of music and starting from scratch, the recovered music library would be changed to match the MM configurations? I know there is a "find missing tracks tool" that I could use, but I'm not sure what that would do, beyond relocating the files previously deleted.

What MM features/general strategies can I use to match my recovered files to the way they were and are still represented when I open my library on MM? (Of course, if I literally try to play the songs on MM, it can't find the file and starts speeding down the list of tunes to find something it can. It's kind of a "ghost image" of the great shape I had things in. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I'd really value your help. Best! -Joher

[dtsig]

Hopefully one of the great minds will chime in with a way simple answer but .. as I see it you have kind of a catch-22. You want to keep the "library" info in MMW but change the location of the files as you download them .. is that right?

First .. if you mean recovery sw for recovering data from a drive .. I have Ontrack (pretty sure that is haven't used for a while). I got it some 15+ years ago and it has served me very well 3 different times. Though now I try to backup my 5 4tb drives with backup drives (I remember when we used to do floppy backups .. not sure how that would work now). I know there is always a cost involved and it is harder for some than others .. but I decided quite a while ago that IF i wanted a big media libray (ripping my multi-thousands of cds/records/dvdx) then I simply had to do drive to drive backups. I strongly suggest you think going this way. Then you don't have to worry about *the cloud* or anything else ..

Ok .. Once you get your music down then you have to organize it and sync it up with MMW. After backing up MMW the first think i would probably try is File/Find Missing Files to see if it recognizes the files that way. THEN you can always use Auto-Organize to move them around (rename) according to the data in MMW.

To me that is the first thing I would try. From there, once you get MMW to recognize the files you can sync the files with the tags.

[Lowlander]

Locate Moved/Missing is the only build in method and depends on not too many things having changed. You'll need to make sure the matches it makes (if any) are correct.

[Batalanto!]

Hopefully one of the great minds will chime in with a way simple answer but .. as I see it you have kind of a catch-22. You want to keep the "library" info in MMW but change the location of the files as you download them .. is that right?

First .. if you mean recovery sw for recovering data from a drive .. I have Ontrack (pretty sure that is haven't used for a while). I got it some 15+ years ago and it has served me very well 3 different times. Though now I try to backup my 5 4tb drives with backup drives (I remember when we used to do floppy backups .. not sure how that would work now). I know there is always a cost involved and it is harder for some than others .. but I decided quite a while ago that IF i wanted a big media libray (ripping my multi-thousands of cds/records/dvdx) then I simply had to do drive to drive backups. I strongly suggest you think going this way. Then you don't have to worry about *the cloud* or anything else ..

Ok .. Once you get your music down then you have to organize it and sync it up with MMW. After backing up MMW the first think i would probably try is File/Find Missing Files to see if it recognizes the files that way. THEN you can always use Auto-Organize to move them around (rename) according to the data in MMW.

To me that is the first thing I would try. From there, once you get MMW to recognize the files you can sync the files with the tags.

DTSIG,

Thanks for responding. To answer your first question, I have already downloaded the music back onto my laptop's hard drive. But the updated names, tags, album art are all in the state they were before I corrected everything...and then accidentally deleted it. Got it on the File/Find Missing suggestion. How would I sync the files with their former tags? Thanks.

[Batalanto!]

Locate Moved/Missing is the only build in method and depends on not too many things having changed. You'll need to make sure the matches it makes (if any) are correct.

Lowlander,

Thanks for the feedback. I'll try the Moved/Missing feature. What do you mean by "not too many things have changed"? What has likely changed and reflected in how MM still shows it in my library - are updated names, files, locations, genre, and album art. Too much, then, for Moved/Missing feature to work? What does "Lowlander" mean, by the way? Is it a historical reference to the geography of a certain peoples? Highlanders (Scotts?) versus those below? (The...Anglo-Saxon?) Interested in knowing. Best!

[Lowlander]

If filenames changed it will likely fail to find the correct files. If you do use it make sure you verify each match and only leave the correct ones selected.

You can also copy tags from old (db) to new (recovered) files using: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... +duplicate

[Batalanto!]

If filenames changed it will likely fail to find the correct files. If you do use it make sure you verify each match and only leave the correct ones selected.

You can also copy tags from old (db) to new (recovered) files using: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... +duplicate

Super I'll look into that script. Is there a way that I can create a list or take a snapshot of my library as represented in Media Monkey? I ask because if I need to start from scratch, at least I can see which songs I deleted and which songs I integrated into a single "album" before I deleted everything. And then I can use that list to guide me in replicating those same actions. I saved a playlist of my entire library, but it does not give me a word document file list that I can open up, read, and use. Any way I can do that? Maybe change the format of how the playlist is saved? Thanks.

[Lowlander]

You can create reports using File > Create Reports.

[Batalanto!]

You can create reports using File > Create Reports.

Thanks very much I'll give that a go. Lowlander, may I ask what process you have chosen to back up your music files? Have you every really used a good recovery program for anything? Best!

[Lowlander]

I use Karen's Replicator as software and backup to an external drive that is stored off-site.

As it backs up the files in the same structure/filename any restoration would be easy as the files are the same.

[dtsig]

Yep .. it is very good. I am using it right now for my backup .. drive 2 of 5 <sigh>

[Batalanto!]

I use Karen's Replicator as software and backup to an external drive that is stored off-site.

As it backs up the files in the same structure/filename any restoration would be easy as the files are the same.

Why would this be better than, say, OneDrive? It's office site (cloud) consistently updates, and I think backs things up in the same file structure, as it syncs specific files, as selected? Thanks for the suggestion. I'm still learning what the distinctions/advantages might be. It would not involve buying an external hard drive and then coordinating an off-site location to store it.

[Lowlander]

For starters it would depend on your collection size and your bandwidth restrictions (may be slow or capped). Another concern for some would be privacy.

In itself a Cloud backup should be more reliable than a single drive backup as Cloud services are build to cope with drive failure. It is also more convenient and can be kept up-to-date all the time. So depending on what you're working with it may be a better solution than managing the backup yourself.

For me as I already have drive failure covered on the primary storage and have to deal with caps and a large amount of data (music isn't the only thing I keep backed up) I've chosen to maintain a backup myself instead of in the cloud. The off-site storage is just to be able to recover from a fire.

[Batalanto!]

[quote uote="Lowlander"]For starters it would depend on your collection size and your bandwidth restrictions (may be slow or capped). Another concern for some would be privacy.

In itself a Cloud backup should be more reliable than a single drive backup as Cloud services are build to cope with drive failure. It is also more convenient and can be kept up-to-date all the time. So depending on what you're working with it may be a better solution than managing the backup yourself.

For me as I already have drive failure covered on the primary storage and have to deal with caps and a large amount of data (music isn't the only thing I keep backed up) I've chosen to maintain a backup myself instead of in the cloud. The off-site storage is just to be able to recover from a fire.[/quote]

LL: Thanks for the thorough answer. Got it. I can see why that would be an optimal choice for you. I rearly don't trust the proverbial cloud, either, butit seems xconvenient for my needs. Best!

[Batalanto!]

You can create reports using File > Create Reports.

LL: That report is going to be a great convenience when I Start rebuilding my collection. Thanks to you and the others who participated in this discussion. Always friendly counsel here, which I always appreciate. Best!

Oh, and if any of you are "Twin Peaks" fans, here is the audition I put together for the executive producers. http://www.TwinPeaksAudition.com