96. Restore Your Music from Backup BEFORE YOU BEGIN 11 Add a Music File to Your iTunes Library 94 Back Up Your Music to CD or DVD SEE ALSO 62 Repair a Missing Song Entry 97 Restore Your Music Library Database from a Backup Copy Murphy's Law (or one of its corollaries) implies that the surest way to prevent any disaster from befalling your computer or your music files is to keep regular backups. However, if you don't keep backups , even a minor data-loss event can be painful enough to give you a newfound sense of responsibility. 96. Restore Your Music from Backup Sooner or later will come a day when you need to rebuild your iTunes' music collectionwhether all at once (as after a hard disk crash) or a few songs at a time. If you've been keeping backups by burning CD or DVD sets as described in 94 Back Up Your Music to CD or DVD , restoring this music can be a breezeeasier and quicker than creating the backups themselves . TIP When you restore music from backup files, each song brings with it the information in its internal info tags , such as Song Name , Artist, Album , and Genre . Remember that the info tags do not include external information such as the Last Played field and your star ratings, or your playlists ; this information is contained in the iTunes database file, which you can restore from a backup as described in 97 Restore Your Music Library Database from a Backup Copy . 1. | Configure iTunes to Copy Music to the iTunes Music Folder Open the iTunes Preferences window (choose Edit, Preferences in Windows, or iTunes, Preferences on the Mac); click the Advanced tab. Enable the Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library check box, if it isn't already selected. This option ensures that iTunes copies your song files off the CD or DVD and back into its iTunes Music folder, where the songs used to reside. Click OK . | 2. | Locate the Backed-up Music Files Insert the disc containing the music files you want to restore. Music files are burned to data discs in the order specified in the all-encompassing Smart Playlist you created in 94 Back Up Your Music to CD or DVD ; if you printed out a track listing of the playlist at that time, you should be able to determine easily which disc has the songs you want. The inserted disc appears in iTunes' Source pane and is automatically selected when the disc is mounted, showing you its contents. Navigate to the songs you want, using the Browse button to organize the songs by their info tags if necessary. NOTE You can't change the info tags of song files on a data disc in iTunes; you must copy them to your hard disk before you can edit them. | 3. | Import Music into iTunes Select the songs you want to restore; hold down Shift as you click to select a contiguous block of songs or hold down Ctrl or " to select multiple noncontiguous songs. Drag the songs from the CD's content listing to the Library item in the Source pane. The files are copied to the computer's hard disk and organized into their proper folders in the iTunes Music folder. If you go to the Library view and navigate the Browse lists, you'll find the songs right where they should be. | |