Dont let me loose my playcounts!!!

July 20, 2006 2:42 PM

Save my itunes playcounts and ratings! Damnable windows has crashed!

Well it had to happen. My laptop has crashed, windows wont boot. Oh the Dispair!

Im using Knoppix to rescue all the files I didnt have a backup of (thankfuly not many). And all is going swimmingly

But heres the crux of my question. Whilst im transfering files is there a way of rescuing the playlists, playcounts and ratings from my install of itunes? Is it as simple as finding the itunes DB file and saving it? Im sure there must be a way. Help me metafilter!

posted by gergtreble to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Best answer: I've brought software back to it's pre-crash condition by first copying the contents of the entire original directory somewhere safe, then reinstalling the software in the new install of windows to get the registry going.

After this I copy the previous installation over the top of the new installation and it brings all the previous settings and customisation back.

I can't guarantee it will work, but I've done it a few times and it's been quite successful.
posted by tomble at 2:51 PM on July 20, 2006

C:\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music Library.xml
posted by sergeant sandwich at 3:04 PM on July 20, 2006

Best answer: i guess i should be more explicit. locate that file, save it somewhere safe. when you reinstall, overwrite the new file with that one. note that this won't copy the mp3 files themselves, just the library contents. it'll also be borked if your new files are located in a different place than they were on the original install, so pay attention to where your old files were.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 3:09 PM on July 20, 2006

Response by poster: Thanks Sarge!

I was hoping it would be as simple as that. Tomble, thats a good tip as well, i might do that to rescue my firefox settings and extensions...

Best answers all round!
posted by gergtreble at 3:59 PM on July 20, 2006

Your Firefox data will be in

c:/Documents and Settings/Your Old Account Name/Application Data/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/gibberish.default/

rather than the Firefox folder in your Program Files folder.

If you copy the whole folder, rather than specific files and subfolders, you'll have to edit the new profiles.ini file to point to the old folder you copied over rather than the one generated by your new install of Firefox.
posted by concrete at 7:15 PM on July 20, 2006

there are actually two itunes info files, and you need them both, i think.

they live in the same directory.. the xml file that the sarge mentions, and i think the other has the same name, but ends in the extension .db

not at home, so can't check right now..

for what it's worth, a long time ago i wrote and scheduled a batch file to copy both those files onto my ipod every 24 hours. it's a reliable backup method. after the last time, i'm never losing my library files again!
posted by ascullion at 3:46 AM on July 21, 2006