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[Diverdown1964]

I've just received a new, larger drive and I have it installed. My question is, what is the best way to move all of my MC Content from one drive to the other without losing any database information?

I started using the MC Explorer to move a master folder, but when the move operation failed due to lack of space on the priimary drive, all of the "moved" source files had been deleted, and they had not been created at the destination. This makes me a little nervous (I had the files backed up).

Thanks in advance.

[lalittle]

If both drives are currently in the system, you can simply select all the files and use the "move/copy" function from within MC.  If this isn't possible (as is sometimes the case when doing a new OS install) you can use the "find/replace" command to change the "old" path (the one where MC "thinks" the files should be located) to the "new" path (the one where the files actually ARE located now.)

I posted a more detailed respose to this question recently -- just do a search for "find," "replace," and "Larry" if you need more information.

Larry

[jleerigby]

You don't say which drive letters are used for your old / new drives or whether they are on the operating system drive.  If your old files are on, for example, D: and your new drive is called E:, you could simply change the drive letter of E: to D: and you won't need to make any changes to MC.

[Diverdown1964]

The new drive is actually on a different machine. And I would use Move/Copy, but I wish to retain the existing folder structure, although I haven't dived very deep on that one....

[lalittle]

Copy the files over with Explorer, then use the "find/replace" function in MC on the songs to replace the old path with the new one.  For example, if you copied your mp3 directory from drive F to drive G, maintaining the same folder structure, you would use "find/replace" in MC on the "filename (path)" field to replace "F:\Audio Library\" with "G:\Audio Library\".

Wait until everything is completely working correctly to delete the original files (and I would recommend keeping another copy as a backup as well.)

Larry

[lise]

The Find/Replace seems to be broken; it actually moves files instead of just renaming the reference to them in the database.

Copied files from M:\ on one machine to H:\ on another using Explorer.

I tried a Find/Replace on Filename (path) from M:\Music to H:\Music.  The first time I did this it worked, except that all my playlists refered to files with an additiona (1) at the end of the name. Find/Replace on (1) results in a dialog box asking if I want to overwrite the file.

Started from scratch with another copy of a database (where all files refer to the old M: drive).  Did another find/replace on M:\ for H:\ and this time I get dialog box saying the file already exists in H:\ and do I want to replace it.

[lalittle]

The Find/Replace seems to be broken; it actually moves files instead of just renaming the reference to them in the database.

From your descriptions, it sounds like the find replace function is working properly.

If you use the find/replace function to change anything to do with the path/location of the file, it will move them to the new location (or, if the new location is where they already are, it will simply fix the links.)  If you manually edit the "filename(path) tag it moves the files, so it would make sense that the find/replace would do the same thing.

After you did this the first time, you already had files in the new location, so another find replace would have to overwrite the previous ones.  Exactly what you "find" and what you "replace" it with can get a bit tricky sometimes, but it doesn't really sound like a malfunciton from your description.

Larry

[lise]

Hi Larry,

There is a copy/move function within MC. Presumably if one wants to move their files from within, they use this function. If they want to move their files from IE, they need some way of re-associating files with the new path. I think that's what Find/Replace does. Perhaps it acts as you suggest when the files weren't already moved. That would make sense. But when the files are already there, there is nothing to move, nothing to overwrite.

I started from scratch again, with another database that pointed to M:\ (the previous drive) and find replace worked well. I found that there were only about 12 files that didn't take well to the find/replace, but I just re-imported them. Not sure what the problem was the first few times around. No doubt some sort of lise-error.

[lalittle]

There is a copy/move function within MC. Presumably if one wants to move their files from within, they use this function.

I agree -- and this was the first thing I said in my first response above.

If they want to move their files from IE, they need some way of re-associating files with the new path. I think that's what Find/Replace does.

Exactly -- but as long as you change the path, it will move the files as part of the operation.  In other words, MC is being "smart" and moving the files to where you say they are going to be, just as it would if you change the path by editing the tag info.

Larry

[lise]

MC sometimes claims that it could not update the database after a Find/Replace, when in fact it has updated. That was my problem. At the initial Find/Replace, MC warned that it could not update the files. At my second attempt, MC asked if I wanted to overwrite the files that it couldn't detect in the first instance.

I posted this in the bug thread.

[kwake]

Hi FunnyGuy,

You may already know this, but since it wasn't mentioned in the thread, I'll add it:

I'm not sure if it's the default, but Media Center will actually store tag information as part of the actual file you are tagging, and therefore is not dependant on the Media Center proprietary database in most cases.

To me that means you can simply copy the files over any way you like, then update your library accordingly (by first cleaning, then adding media to your library). I would also think you could delete your library completely, and just re-add after the files have been moved.

Regards,
Kwake

[lise]

Yes, you could just re-import but you would lose all your playlists. While you could export your playlists first, you would run into the same problem you had initially: the exported playlists would point to the older drive. Not sure how MC10 deals with this, i.e. how to easily change the drive letter in the playlist file (m3u, mpl, etc).  Would probably have to manually find/replace using Notepad or whatever.

Seems like too much trouble. I would never re-import unless the circumstances required drastic measures.