Topic: Media Center on Multiple Computers (Read 9042 times)

rwwear · « **on:** July 09, 2016, 03:45:59 pm »

I want to install Media Center to a couple of more computers using the files from the first one. How can I clone the hard drive and not have any problems such as lost artwork and unknown files on the other computers?

JimH · « **Reply #1 on:** July 09, 2016, 06:39:13 pm »

If you did make an exact copy of a drive and if it appeared as the same drive letter (D:, E:, etc) on the new machine, then you could backup the library on the first machine and restore it on the new one.

See Restoring a License on our wiki. Also the topic there called Moving Files.

rwwear · « **Reply #2 on:** July 10, 2016, 06:39:22 pm »

I want to clone my hard drive and use it on two other computers. What's the best way without causing loss of artwork and metadata?

blgentry · « **Reply #3 on:** July 10, 2016, 07:45:35 pm »

Backup library
Copy Cover Art Folder
Restore library
Change any hard drive paths with RM&C if required
Transfer copied Cover Art Folder
Change cover art directory location (in options) if required

That should mostly cover it.

Brian.

rwwear · « **Reply #4 on:** July 11, 2016, 11:43:36 pm »

Quote from: JimH on July 09, 2016, 06:39:13 pm

If you did make an exact copy of a drive and if it appeared as the same drive letter (D:, E:, etc) on the new machine, then you could backup the library on the first machine and restore it on the new one.

See Restoring a License on our wiki. Also the topic there called Moving Files.

I let MC back up the library to the same drive as the files. When I copy the drive shouldn't it work fine?

BryanC · « **Reply #5 on:** July 12, 2016, 02:38:47 pm »

It sounds like you want to clone an entire drive? If so I would recommend Clonezilla.

MarkCoutinho · « **Reply #6 on:** July 12, 2016, 04:21:08 pm »

The way I do it for years now is quite similar to what Jim says:
1) make a copy of the music and photos in their folders (keep the tree intact!) to an external drive
2) make a backup of the library and store it on a USB-stick (or something like Google Drive)
3) on the second (or third or fourth) computer: copy the entire tree of folders that's made in step 1 and put it on exact the same drive letter as it's on the original computer
4) restore the backup made in 2)

That should do the trick.

rwwear · « **Reply #7 on:** July 13, 2016, 08:56:16 pm »

Quote from: MarkCoutinho on July 12, 2016, 04:21:08 pm

The way I do it for years now is quite similar to what Jim says:
1) make a copy of the music and photos in their folders (keep the tree intact!) to an external drive
2) make a backup of the library and store it on a USB-stick (or something like Google Drive)
3) on the second (or third or fourth) computer: copy the entire tree of folders that's made in step 1 and put it on exact the same drive letter as it's on the original computer
4) restore the backup made in 2)

That should do the trick.

I store the artwork within the music files as a jpeg folder.
Should I restore the library before or after I load the music into MC? I have been storing the library backup with the music files.

MarkCoutinho · « **Reply #8 on:** July 14, 2016, 05:30:58 am »

I'm not sure whether you don't understand me or that I don't understand you.
In my opinion is the way I explained sufficient for your artwork-'problem' as well.

However: if you restore a library (after you've copied all the music and other files within Windows Explorer), you don't need MC to 'load the music'. After the restore your MC will look identically to the one you copied everything from

rwwear · « **Reply #9 on:** July 14, 2016, 06:40:52 am »

When I install the new hard drive it will be on a different computer than the current one and there will be no MC installed yet. Once I install MC on the new computer I will be loading the music into it. My question is simply do I restore the library on the new computer before or after the music files are loaded into MC.

JimH · « **Reply #10 on:** July 14, 2016, 06:55:53 am »

If you restore an MC backup, you don't need to import the files.

rwwear · « **Reply #11 on:** July 14, 2016, 07:02:32 am »

Okay. Thanks.

wburkett · « **Reply #12 on:** July 14, 2016, 01:52:11 pm »

Man!!! How timely!!! I've been away from the forum for a while and came back today to ask this very same question!! Thank you, all, for the prescience to answer my (or rwwear's, rather) question before I asked it!

I do have one additional spin on the question: can I merely copy the library from one machine to the other rather than backup/restore? What I'd like to do is merely copy/sync my MC Library each time my laptop is on the same network with my main machine.

Bill

MarkCoutinho · « **Reply #13 on:** July 15, 2016, 02:54:47 pm »

Quote from: wburkett on July 14, 2016, 01:52:11 pm

I do have one additional spin on the question: can I merely copy the library from one machine to the other rather than backup/restore? What I'd like to do is merely copy/sync my MC Library each time my laptop is on the same network with my main machine.

I'd not advise that, to be honest. I've tried something similar - even a step further: placing all the lib-files on Google Drive so I never had to backup/restore. But sadly that doesn't work 100%.
Just sort of automate the backup and restore routine. I've been helped a lot on this one in this post: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=103421.msg719850#msg719850
Hope that'll help you too.

rwwear · « **Reply #14 on:** July 15, 2016, 08:14:38 pm »

Quote from: JimH on July 14, 2016, 06:55:53 am

If you restore an MC backup, you don't need to import the files.

None of the above worked. I have so far been unable to change the letter of my hard drive.

MarkCoutinho · « **Reply #15 on:** July 16, 2016, 07:55:39 am »

This is what I've done to give my music folder a drive-letter.
I've put the music on my external drive which is called the D-drive. On that drive I have the folder 'Music'. In that folder I've put, of course, all my music (in subfolders too, but that's not that interesting in this example)

I've made a Dos-batch in which I give this folder (D:\Music) the drive-letter R
It's quite simple:

@echo off
subst R: D:\Music

That's it. I stored this in a batch called ChangeLetter.bat and thát batch file I put in the Startup folder of Windows.
So now every time I start Windows, this batch is launched which give me the drive R.

Of course in MediaCenter all music is pointed to that drive (and its subfolders).

If you use that batch on both computers they will have the same R-drive, even if the original folder is located on different locations (say, at home in D:\Music and at the office in C:\Music).

Hope this will get you a bit further.

rwwear · « **Reply #16 on:** July 16, 2016, 09:03:52 am »

Quote from: MarkCoutinho on July 16, 2016, 07:55:39 am

This is what I've done to give my music folder a drive-letter.
I've put the music on my external drive which is called the D-drive. On that drive I have the folder 'Music'. In that folder I've put, of course, all my music (in subfolders too, but that's not that interesting in this example)

I've made a Dos-batch in which I give this folder (D:\Music) the drive-letter R
It's quite simple:

@echo off
subst R: D:\Music

That's it. I stored this in a batch called ChangeLetter.bat and thát batch file I put in the Startup folder of Windows.
So now every time I start Windows, this batch is launched which give me the drive R.

Of course in MediaCenter all music is pointed to that drive (and its subfolders).

If you use that batch on both computers they will have the same R-drive, even if the original folder is located on different locations (say, at home in D:\Music and at the office in C:\Music).

Hope this will get you a bit further.

I wondered if I could just change the folder name on the drive.

MarkCoutinho · « **Reply #17 on:** July 16, 2016, 10:20:03 am »

Quote from: rwwear on July 16, 2016, 09:03:52 am

I wondered if I could just change the folder name on the drive.

Of course you can, just as long as the foldername (and path of course) on computer 1 is exactly the same as on any other computer. Then, and only then a backup/restore procedure will work easily.

rwwear · « **Reply #18 on:** July 16, 2016, 08:50:28 pm »

Quote from: MarkCoutinho on July 16, 2016, 10:20:03 am

Of course you can, just as long as the foldername (and path of course) on computer 1 is exactly the same as on any other computer. Then, and only then a backup/restore procedure will work easily.

It worked but I did have to use Import to get the music into MC.

MarkCoutinho · « **Reply #19 on:** July 17, 2016, 03:30:31 am »

Quote from: rwwear on July 16, 2016, 08:50:28 pm

It worked but I did have to use Import to get the music into MC.

Apparantly something went wrong then because, just like JimH said in this post, my suggestion should work.

But why bother when you're up and running now!

Have fun with MC!

rwwear · « **Reply #20 on:** July 17, 2016, 08:24:24 am »

Quote from: MarkCoutinho on July 17, 2016, 03:30:31 am

Apparantly something went wrong then because, just like JimH said in this post, my suggestion should work.

But why bother when you're up and running now!

Have fun with MC!

But, I wonder why it didn't work the way everyone says it should? Whenever I try to restore the library all I get is empty folders with no art.

blgentry · « **Reply #21 on:** July 18, 2016, 10:17:10 am »

Quote from: rwwear on July 17, 2016, 08:24:24 am

But, I wonder why it didn't work the way everyone says it should? Whenever I try to restore the library all I get is empty folders with no art.

I'm pretty sure you have your drive letters and/or folders set up differently on the two different machines.

You would need to use the Rename, Move, and Copy tool to change the paths or drive letters so that they match the paths and/or drives on the new machine. This is very quick and pretty easy once you know how. The first time or two, it requires some figuring out. But after that, you'll be able to do it very easily. Here's an example from the wiki that should illustrate the technique:

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Find_and_Replace_Template#Moving_Files_to_a_Dedicated_Media_Drive

Brian.

wburkett · « **Reply #22 on:** July 19, 2016, 10:07:16 pm »

Ha! I'm not exactly sure what I'm missing (if anything), but

(1) I installed MC on a second computer,
(2) Plugged in an external hard drive containing a copy of my music files,
(3) made sure the path to the music files was exactly the same,
(4) then COPIED the Library files from my main MC installation to the second computer, pasting them over the Library files of the installation on the second computer,

and MC launched looking almost exactly the same as my main installation. So copying the files (rather than backup/restore) does seem to work.

This is just the very first impression: I'll let you know if I bump into any problems.

Bill

rwwear · « **Reply #23 on:** July 20, 2016, 08:27:48 am »

Quote from: wburkett on July 19, 2016, 10:07:16 pm

Ha! I'm not exactly sure what I'm missing (if anything), but

(1) I installed MC on a second computer,
(2) Plugged in an external hard drive containing a copy of my music files,
(3) made sure the path to the music files was exactly the same,
(4) then COPIED the Library files from my main MC installation to the second computer, pasting them over the Library files of the installation on the second computer,

and MC launched looking almost exactly the same as my main installation. So copying the files (rather than backup/restore) does seem to work.

This is just the very first impression: I'll let you know if I bump into any problems.

Bill

I tried that too. I have 722 Gigs of files so it took hours. It didn't work for me as I had about 1400 files that were unassigned. Check and make sure you don't have any unassigned or unknown files. If not, you're good.

wburkett · « **Reply #24 on:** July 26, 2016, 05:53:52 pm »

You've misunderstood, rwwear. The Library files themselves are about 24M - THAT is what I copied to the second machine. It took seconds.

All of my music files are synced/stored on an external drive. When I plug the external drive into the second machine, the path to the music files is exactly the same as the path on my main computer. Thus the copied Library files can find the music files on the external drive on the second machine.

I copied all of my music files once long ago and keep them synced with the external drive.

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Author Topic: Media Center on Multiple Computers (Read 9042 times)