i do have the backups saved and have tried restoring, which does indeed restore all the missing tags, however, i cannot get it to link to the new location of the files (the drives were all renumbered when i reinstalled windows). i tried using the rename, move & copy files option to update the database to point to new location of files, but it didn't work (it was showing the correct file path, but claimed the files weren't there when i tried to play) plus all the artwork was missing after restoring. so i put it back to how it was. it's quite weird as most albums have the first 2 or 3 tracks fully tagged, with the rest only having the track name filled in. it's fairly easy to sort, i just have to view by file location, which puts everything in the right order, then it's just a case of filling in the gaps. it just quite time consuming is all!
thanks for the info.