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[Skeet]

I want to move my entire library to a new drive (with new drive letter), it's about 60gb and 13,000 files. Is there an easy way to do this?

I asked this question a couple of years ago, and in those days there was no easy answer, (apart from editing the library files with a text editor), has anything changed since those days? Is it still a pretty hairy operation?

[tlongacre]

Maybe someone can offer a better answer, but here are two ways to try:

1.  Move the files and then go into MC and create a new library (by importing from the new location). That'll take some time, some real time. I did this with 20,000+ songs and it took a long time.

2.  Move the files, open MC and then do Find & Replace on the filename to change the path portion. This will work (I've done it on a few files in MC 11), but I don't know how long it will take because I wasn't brave enough to let it run on my entire library -- the action might be pretty quick, but the Saving Tags in the background might take just as long as importing (think 6-8 hours-ish).

Anyone else got a better idea?

[LonWar]

If your using 11, then you should be able to move the files, then reimport them and make sure you have fix library links.

TRY THIS ON A FEW FILES FIRST.


The other way would be to rename them, you can specify a new location.

[KingSparta]

why not just use the "move" option?

or like imjustagamer said the rename function

[Jaguu]

If you do a "Search/Replace" on the filename and simply change the drive letter or the whole path, then MC11 will change the file tag and move the files to the new location, at least within the same drive, but should probably also work for a new drive. I don't think you have to move the files outside of MC any longer, at least with MC11.

In any case backup your library and try with a few files first.

In the old days the "move command" never created subfolders, you got everything flat on the new folder. Maybe this bug has been fixed in the meantime. Otherwise King Sparta wouldn't recommend this option!

[sail121j]

I have moved llibrarys a few times and the easy way is to just take the file 'field (filename).jmd'
that is found in the folder
 'application data\j river\media center 11\library'
and put it into microsoft word and do a 'find replace' with the new disk name.
assuming that the folder structure is the same in both the old disk and the new one..

[KingSparta]

Otherwise King Sparta wouldn't recommend this option!

I don't think this option has a bug.

but it also does not move the files to the same folders or create them.

the rename fuction does however

[Skeet]

Hiya, Thanks for your responses.
I've done a few practises for this.
Am I right in thinking that if I use the "rename" option, I'm going to lose the original folder structure when the files are moved (or create a new structure from the fields)?

I was hoping to avoid this. It seems if you use the "move" option, you lose the whole folder structure too.

Maybe it's back to the text editor option.

[Jaguu]

Whith the option "Rename file from properties" you have to build up your own rule set, so whether you get a subfolder structure depends on how you define your rules.

You can set the base folder, the rules for subsequent subfolders and the rules for the filename. SAmple:

Base Folder: D:\Media
Subfolder rule: [Media Type]\[Artist]\[Album]
Filename rule: [Artist] - [Track #] - [Name]

Those rules would move your files to:

D:\Media\Audio\Artist\Album\Artist - ## - Name.[ape|mp3|wma|ogg]

[Skeet]

Yes, but there is no way of keeping the original folder structure. If you chose no rules, it moves them to a flat structure.

[Alex B]

MC will move the imported files to a new identical folder system on a new drive when e.g. "D:\" is replaced with "E:\" in "Filename(path)" by the "Find and Replace" tool. It does not move files that are not imported to the MC library and it does not move the media files, which are referenced by APL files or CUE entries.

Another way is to move the whole folder structure with Windows Explorer (outside MC) and correct the drive letter information (and the base path if needed) by the "Find and Replace" tool after restarting MC. Then MC will not move anything. It just finds the files in the new locations.

[Skeet]

Hi Alex,
I have made a copy of the new drive files outside of MC.

When I now use the Find and Replace tool, MC then tries to move the old files on top of the moved ones. It brings up a "confirm file replace" (Y/N) dialog box for each file. This would be OK if I could confirm for all, but it brings the dialog box up for each individual file.  

I just need a simple way of reseting my pointers so that what pointed to D:\ now points to H:\ .  Without MC attempting to move the files.

[Alex B]

Hide the old files before starting MC.

EDIT

Did you make a library backup first? If not do it now. It is a good practice to do it before any major changes.

(File > Library > Backup Library...)

[Alex B]

I just tried it again with a small test library (939 items). It displayed an error message, but that was after the correction and I had to click it just once. After that the new location was OK.

[Skeet]

Brilliant, that's done it.
Thanks for your help.