Entertainment For Lively Minds
Backing Up iTunes
I recently had to reformat my pc so set off to make a back up to an external hard drive that I could restore from for my songs and photos. Simple, I thought.
First Photoshop elements. Easy to do - select make a back up - select what media I want to make the back up too - external hard drive. I made a set on DVD for storing away from the house as well while I was at it.
Next iTunes. Backing up to DVD's needed 14 discs. I spent 10 minutes looking for the hard drive option. Not apparent. I googled and it seems that there is no way of doing it. Ended up doing it in MediaMonkey (easy) but I have lost the tag information on plays and stars etc.
So, has anyone out there made a restorable back up onto a hard drive on iTunes? Can it be done? Have the kings of design really made a bit of software with this ridiculous flaw?
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Google is your friend
According to the Apple site at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751 this is supposed to be supported and simple. (I googled "itunes backup to external hard drive"). Good luck.
Doesn't a normal
back up programme to external hardrive do this mine backs up all contennt?
Difficult to say, as they would vary
...and with iTunes there may be an added complication of DRM (digital rights making-your-life-a-bloody-misery). In principle yes, a normal backup program told to hit the right folders and hierarchies of the machine will take a full backup. Whether you'll be able to read it again on another machine is another matter.
I had a full system back up
but I reformatted my PC because of a botnet attack on it so the full system restore may have restored the virus as well. Oh for a simple hard drive failure type problem......
Nothing stopping you...
... backing up your ITunes Music folder to an external hard-drive - just using copy and paste features.
Exactly what I do
Takes half an hour or so to transfer the 50 gig but it acts as a back up. I simply "copy" the Itunes sections that are located in the my music folder.
I find that its best to do this regularly (monthly) each time I do, I delete the existing back up and start again. There may be tidier ways of doing it but at least this way would enable you to recover your files in the event of a PC problem
It was more the simplicity
of restoring the files automatically back into iTunes. It offers me the functionality to do that on discs but not hard drives.
On Photoshop, it was simple and once I loaded the application, I restored from the backup and it had all the photos, tags and albums intact. On iTunes, I had to load the files from the hard drive by importing them into the library and creating a copy of the file in the iTunes music folder. In order to automatically restore, you need CD's or DVD's. It seems wilfully unhelpful.
Here's the apple support page on it -> http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1382
Not sure I understand
...according to the page referenced earlier (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751) restoring is a simple drag and drop action, then use iTunes to Choose that library you restored (as opposed to the Create option you mentioned). Is there something that this doesn't do for you ?
Confession:Haven't tried it myself as I'm a WMA user....only use iTunes for no.1 son's iPod which doesn't need backing up.
That works if
all you music is in one place on your pc - mine is in around 4 or 5 places. The last time I consolidated my iTunes library, I ended up with a large number of duplicate files so was loathe to do this. I have set up my new install of iTunes to have a single consolidated location (and have set up eMusic, 7Digital and Amazon to save to the same file. But even then, that method is still clunky compared to Photoshop simplicity and I would have thought that Apple would have made it simpler (because they can). Having to go outside of the app and copy from Windows Explorer seems at odds with the rest of the way iTunes works.
Confused too...
Is it the actual music files you want to backup or the itunes library.
If it's the actual files then it is just drag and drop (or copy & paste) , if it's the itunes library file (the one that directs itunes to your actual files) then in itunes:
itunes>preferences>advanced then when it says "itunes media file location" navigate to your hard drive and click "ok"
The above good for Mac btw, I think it's the same for Windows.
It's me I think
I just expected iTunes to have an elegant way of restoring a new instance of iTunes with an exact replica of the previous instance. It has an elegant way of doing it with CD's or DVD's (by elegant I mean all the info gets carried across with no more than 2 or 3 clicks and within the application) but not with a hard drive.
Backing up a PC?
What for? What could possibly go wrong?
If you need me I'll be over there eating a Supersized Big Mac while filling up my car at a petrol pump, talking on a mobile and smoking.
Cripes. I haven't backed up in an age. Thanks for the reminder.
Not as easy as it should be
I have invested $20 in a program called CopyTrans which does it all for you. I have used it a number of times and do not keep my music on my main computer, I simply back up direct from the iPod. It takes a while to back up (I have about 90 gig) but it works and I have used it to restore and download onto a new iPod. You have to renew your license annually but for $20 a year, it seems well worth the hassle. Just google Copytrans and you'll find the site. Download the trial version which allows only 100 songs and then purchase. Been using for about 18 months and whilst not perfect, I'd give it 9 out of 10. Good luck.
Being a Mac user...
...Time Machine does it all for me. Wirelessly and in the background, I might add.
When I was still using Windows, it was a pain in the arse, but that was years ago - I can't imagine that DVD is your only option.
I use Rebit
which is sort of Time Machine for windows. It saves a copy of the file or allows you to drag and drop back into Windows or do a full system restore. Didn't want to do a restore from it because the virus that I was getting rid of may have been copied into the back up.
Ah.
Fair enough - I see your point. Good luck, and sorry for the utter uselessness of my contribution! :-D
No probs - your fine.
Your advice is good. Large part of me still can't believe I didn't get a Mac when I bought my pc 2 1/2 years ago (had to buy new sofwtare as existing stuff didn't run on Vista, had to buy Rebit which would have been standard on a Mac). Becoming part of a botnet and having to reformat my hard drive merely underlines my dismay at my short sightedness.
Well, depressingly...
...it's surely only a matter of time until some enterprising bastard finds a way to make Macs as virus-vulnerable as Windows machines. Fortunately, the robustness of the UNIX kernel has largely shielded us up until now.
But I shouldn't doomsay. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof...
Simplest backup solution!
Hook up an external hard drive and download back2zip: -
http://free-backup.info/back2zip.html
Nominate the folders you want backing up (usually iTunes is within My Music which is in turn within My Documents) and back2zip will back up everything in its original form. You can set it to back up whenever you want (I set mine to run every 60 minutes and only after 6.00pm).
I can't begin to tell you how many times this excellent (and free) programme has got me out of a tight spot!