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[eddieg69]

I recently upgraded my hard drive that I store my music files on. After I copied all the files to the new drive I removed the old drive. Now when I look in an album all the songs are listed twice, but of course only one plays. How can I get rid of the duplicate songs? Tried to delete the library but it is greyed out. Did the duplicate files smartlist but there is way too many to delete. Don't understand how to do and "E: files" search. That is my problem the duplicates are all listed on the old drive letter.

[wer]

This question is asked all the time.

If you google "jriver duplicates" you will find a wiki article, as well as an endless selection of threads from the forum offering advice.

There is no such thing as "way too many to delete".   Deleted they must be.  And if you sort your view or organize you view to isolate them, you can delete them all in one step. 

You can use the Explorer function (under Drives and Devices in the tree on the left side of your MC) window to find things based on path. Browse to the E driver, and use the options in the top pane (like show files in subfolders) to show you what you want.

[RoderickGI]

Rather than delete the duplicates in this case, I think just fix the cause of the issue. This is not really a duplicates issue at all, it is a moving files issue. Wer, you might have read this post too fast.

See if you understand these instructions. If you only just upgraded your drive and removed the old one, this is best, as long as you used exactly the same directory structure on the new drive, and just copied the whole contents across. If you have imported a whole lot of new files, or have done a lot of work in the Library since the hard drive change, then this is not the best solution. Tell us if that is the case.

1. Turn off Auto Import in MC. Untick "Options > Library & Folders > Auto-Import > Run auto-import import in background. Close MC.
2. Reassign the drive letter of the new drive to what the old drive had. So if the old drive was M: and the new drive is T:, change the new drive letter to M: in Windows. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/disk-management/change-a-drive-letter
3. Restart MC and Restore a Library Backup from before the duplicates appeared. Don't restore settings, just the Library and Playlists. https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Library_Backup

MC should now be back exactly as it was before, using the new drive with the old drive letter, and there should be no duplicates. If you want you can turn Auto Import back on.

The above is the easiest and quickest fix to your problem. There are other ways to do it that are a bit harder, but also don't require the deletion of duplicates from the Library.

[wer]

Wer, you might have read this post too fast.

I don't think so. He relocated files outside of MC, yes obviously, but now he has duplicated entries inside MC, probably exactly half of which have broken links.

The situation can be easily addressed by deleting the broken links duplicates, which are no longer needed since he's finished the move.

Changing the new drive letter is easily accommodated in MC, yes, but perhaps not so easily elsewhere when other apps and data are taken into account. That's why I didn't recommend it.

I think deleting the broken links has the potential to be simpler for him than a whole library restore procedure. Deleting all broken links is exceedingly easy, as you know Rod, using the broken links smartlist.

When you've already shot the pig, it might be easier to just finish skinning and dressing him than to try and take the bullet out and heal him.

But now he has options.

[RoderickGI]

True enough. But the way he has done this move, he has re-imported files into MC. So he may have lost information unless all tags are in the files. Many fields are never saved to tags, so he would definitely have lost some data.

On balance, it depends on the tags, any other applications that may be affected, and Eddie's skills with computers. Some people find the "Find & Replace" method of fixing the drive letter inside MC difficult to follow.

[eddieg69]

I went the rename the drive letter to the old drive letter route. Everything seems to be working fine now. Thanks to everyone for all your help.