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[maliceme]

Sorry if the solution is elsewhere. Running Windows 10 Home. Recently had to do an unexpected, emergency reinstallation of Win10. I did not lose any files, and my old Program files have been moved to an archive folder ("Windows.old"). Now I'm rebuilding my library. Drive mappings for my music files have changed, so I don't know that trying to recover my old library en masse would be any benefit.

Two questions:

1. Is there any way to recover my smartlists from my old Library? I did not have time to perform an "Export all playlists" before the OS reinstall.
2. Is there a tool that will allow me to see ALL tag fields in a music file? I had built some custom tags (e.g., "Artist Name for Sorting") that I think are embedded in the files. I'd like to recreate these custom tag fields in my new library so they can be managed.

Many thanks!

[JimH]

You could restore an MC backup.

You can edit locations if needed.  See the wiki topic called Moving Files.

[dtc]

Sorry if the solution is elsewhere. Running Windows 10 Home. Recently had to do an unexpected, emergency reinstallation of Win10. I did not lose any files, and my old Program files have been moved to an archive folder ("Windows.old"). Now I'm rebuilding my library. Drive mappings for my music files have changed, so I don't know that trying to recover my old library en masse would be any benefit.

Two questions:

1. Is there any way to recover my smartlists from my old Library? I did not have time to perform an "Export all playlists" before the OS reinstall.
2. Is there a tool that will allow me to see ALL tag fields in a music file? I had built some custom tags (e.g., "Artist Name for Sorting") that I think are embedded in the files. I'd like to recreate these custom tag fields in my new library so they can be managed.

Many thanks!

You can see all the tag fields in a music file by looking at the bottom of the Tag window. There is a section called Tag Dump which shows the tag data stored in that file.

[RoderickGI]

I agree with Jim. Restoring a backup and fixing any issues with it is far easier than doing all the other work.

If the problem is just that drive letter assignment has changed in Windows, they can just be changed back to what they used to be. Google how.

If drive mappings to network drives has changed, fix them.

If you can't or don't want to set drive letters back the way they were, or fix network drive mappings, then:

Find a very recent backup, preferably from just before the Windows 10 reinstallation.
Start MC and turn off Auto Import in MC, or check that it is off if you normally leave it off.
Restore the recent Library.
Run the RM&CF function to change the drive letters to their new value(s) in the Library, using only the "Find & Replace" functionality.
Turn Auto Import back on, if that is what you normally do.

All fixed. Smartlists back, custom fields back, View definitions back, Setting back. Everything back, just as it was.

[glynor]

Drive mappings for my music files have changed, so I don't know that trying to recover my old library en masse would be any benefit.

I agree with the suggestions above. Just restore a Library Backup.

However, no need to manually reconstruct old file-paths as mentioned by Rod. You can just move them in MC to the right place after you restore the backup, and "reconnect" the broken links.

First, make sure Auto-Import is set to NOT "fix broken links". I'd recommend just disabling Auto-Import entirely after you do the restore, since you will have to set that all up again if your file locations changed anyway, and it'd be safer.

Then you can use Library Tools > Rename, Move, and Copy Files in Update database to point to new location mode to fix the broken file paths. The simplest way to do this is usually with the Find & Replace Template in RMCF. More info and examples here:
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Rename,_Move,_and_Copy_Files
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Find_and_Replace_Template

[RoderickGI]

True as well. There are many ways to skin a cat, even in MC.