help. i lost half my music!

[jabsy1]

I did something very very stupid.
Ok, so i have two itunes libraries. one on my laptop hard drive, and my main on an external HD. The laptop one is a cut down version of the Ext HD one.
Now, i've been making changes to the laptop library so i decided to copy my laptop itunes folder to the external HD. My thoughts was it would replace all the corresponding artist names. What i didn't realise was any albums and other files under the artists name which wasnt on my laptop would be replaced.....
Is there any way to reverse the folder replacement?
I've lost alot of music.
Any help would be great
thanks
Mike

 

[metalray@mac.co]

I am afraid that when you confirmed that you wanted to replace the file, the original is deleted permanently (and wont hang out in the trash to my knowledge). Next time try to Command-Z to see if it would undo. If your library is composed of some bought songs from iTunes believe there is a way to re-download them.

 

[velocityg4]

In Mac OS when you replace one folder with another it removes the entire old folder. Unlike Windows which only replaces like files.

You may be able to get a partial recovery using DiskWarrior. However every file copied from the iBook is a potential lost file on the external at a minimum so if the iBook library was 2000 songs and the external HD is 5000 that means at least 2000 random songs written over but probably more. Also any other file written to the external after your ibooks library transfer is another potential loss. Any songs recovered will then have to reconciled with your remaining library for duplicates

I know how much this sucks as I lost a huge music library when my iMacs HD failed. My computer that had a backup was a Windows machine that I had reinstalled Windows on just a week before and had not rebuilt my backup talk about bad timing. Anyways all I can say is from this lesson learned always have a back up. Either get another external or use DVD's. I use DVD's and a networked computer with a RAID array.

My library of over 9000 songs is down to 5000 the 4000 I lost were CD's that were stolen from my truck years ago so that part is gone until I replace the CD's. Fortunately my former roomate still had a much older version of the library from before those additional CD purchases.

 

[agentphish]

Rough.

I keep an extra 300gb drive around that just holds a backup of my music. I hook it up once a month or so and do a mirror image of all my music onto that drive.

It's not even in an enclosure. I just hook it up to SATA inside my PC.

No way to get all that back unfortunately.

 

[me_94501]

I did something very very stupid.
Ok, so i have two itunes libraries. one on my laptop hard drive, and my main on an external HD. The laptop one is a cut down version of the Ext HD one.
Now, i've been making changes to the laptop library so i decided to copy my laptop itunes folder to the external HD. My thoughts was it would replace all the corresponding artist names. What i didn't realise was any albums and other files under the artists name which wasnt on my laptop would be replaced.....
Is there any way to reverse the folder replacement?
I've lost alot of music.
Any help would be great
thanks
Mike

You could try something like Data Rescue:
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php

I used it once when I deleted the entire contents of my iPhoto Library. It saved the day.

If you want to be able to rescue any files it is very important that you avoid using the computer as much as humanly possible, because any new files you create could overwrite the ones you're trying to salvage.

In the future, be sure to invest in a good external hard drive and backup regularly. If you're running Leopard, Time Machine makes backing up almost effortless.

 

[jabsy1]

Data rescue.

Thanks me_94501, and all u guys for your help. i got data rescue and it worked.
I got all my files back.
Just saved me months of re-ripping and downloading music.
cheers.
Mike