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[prufrock]

Have recently finished ripping all our CDs to the C Drive on the desktop. Want to move them completely off the C Drive and onto anther to another empty drive (F) in the tower. Have checked out the Wiki and it seems this is the way to do it:

"Using Library Tools, Rename Files from Properties, you can use the renaming to move your files.
1. Select a few files to test before you do many.
2. Check the Directories box.
3. Set the "Base Path". This is the folder under which your music will be stored. Example: C:\Music
4. Set "Rule". Example: [Artist]\[Album] will make a directory named for the Artist and a directory under that for each Album.
Once you've done this for the selected fields, you'll see the proposed results on the right. Hover your mouse over one or two lines to make sure it's going to do what you expect. Then press "OK"."

When the Wiki says "Rename Files from Properties" does this mean that you select "Rename (move if directory changes)" from the 5 possible choices?
I know about how to configure both the Rule boxes and browsing to find the the (F) Drive. When I check across to the right it looks like F:\album name etc. Is this o.k? Or do I need to specify F:\Music\album name etc?
And when I click OK will this both move the files across and delete them from the C Drive?

[Lasse_Lus]

if you want to keep the folder structure intact, you can

move the files inside MC (Drives & Devices)

or move the files to you new Drive (on your own), then repoint the files from C:\ -> F:\ with the "update function" under library tools -> "rename, move and copy function.."

advice:
make backup
try a few first
untick "run autoimport in background"

[Listener]

advice:
make backup
try a few first
untick "run autoimport in background"

Very wise advice.  Best read before plunging in.

Bill

[prufrock]

Sorry I am confused. Are you saying that the first method, i,e the one I described above, will not keep the folder structure intact?
I guess all I need is to be shown just one method of moving them over and keeping everything intact. The wiki article below gives a few ways. However none of them seems to give a thorough step by step procedure that I can follow. Sorry, I am a not good with computers.



Moving Files
There are several ways to move files inside Media Center. Doing so inside MC instead of using Explorer, for example, will allow MC to update its library to reflect the move.
Contents [hide]
1 Library Tools / Rename Files from Properties
2 Library Tools / Find and Replace
3 Drag and Drop
4 Moving a file to another application
Library Tools / Rename Files from Properties

Using Library Tools, Rename Files from Properties, you can use the renaming to move your files.
1. Select a few files to test before you do many.
2. Check the Directories box.
3. Set the "Base Path". This is the folder under which your music will be stored. Example: C:\Music
4. Set "Rule". Example: [Artist]\[Album] will make a directory named for the Artist and a directory under that for each Album.
Once you've done this for the selected fields, you'll see the proposed results on the right. Hover your mouse over one or two lines to make sure it's going to do what you expect. Then press "OK".
Library Tools / Find and Replace

Find and Replace will let you change any part of any field. If you do this in "File Location", you can change "C:" to "D:" or "C:\Music" to "C:\Video". MC will move the files and update its library.
Drag and Drop

You can use MC's My Computer (found in the tree under Drives and Devices) to drag whole folders to a new location. MC will update its library to reflect the changes.
Moving a file to another application

You can select a file, right click, then choose "Send To", "Send To (External)". You can add applications to this list.
You can also drag and drop to many applications. Try this by dragging and dropping a file on the desktop.
Category: Frequently Asked Questions

[MrC]

For this type of task, use Windows Explorer (or any utility specifically designed for copying/moving/archiving).  It will generally be a more robust solution, esp. when handling error situations.

1. Remove from Auto-Import paths that point to the old location.
2. Disable Fix Broken Links in Auto-Import
3. Quit MC.
4. In Explorer, copy the folder from the old to the new drive.
5. Launch MC.
6. Use the Find/Replace tool or Rename, Move & Copy tool (in Update database mode) to change the drive letter / destination folder (as needed) from the Filename fields for the moved media.  It is this field that is the reference to the location of the media files.
7. Return the settings to Auto-Configure (add the new media path, Fix Broken Links).
8. When you are sure the copy worked correctly, then you can delete the originals.


The reason you don't want to try to make these moves in MC's general views is that you are only asking MC to move the files it knows about (i.e. those in the library).  When there are other files in the media folders (e.g. log files, extra cover art, text files, ...), MC will not attempt to move those, and so you're left with two non-identical folder trees, where the original has stragglers which you must manually move.  When these stragglers exist, MC cannot delete the folders (which you were hoping would be empty now, because the files were moved).

The situation is better in Drives & Devies > Explorer, as MC is dealing with the actual files in the folders.  But its error handling/recovery may not be as robust as that of Explorer directly, or other archiving tool.

[prufrock]

Cheers MrC. Thanks for the detailed reply. Will give it a go tomorrow.

[prufrock]

Followed the steps and it all worked fine. The only problem is that I now have other questions

As I will now be ripping to a HD (F:\) in the tower that is not the operating drive, I am not sure about a couple of boxes in the fields in the file location area. As you can see from the screenshot I have changed the first 2 to (F:\).  The next 3 look to be N/A. What about the cover art one? Do I leave as is or does it need to be reconfigured to reflect the fact that the music folders are now in (F;\) ?  Further down, how about the audio and images cache location - does it need reconfiguring?  Same further down for the 2 boxes under Program files.

[MrC]

Suggestions:

1. Set your Audio base path to be F:\Music or some such, so that your audio folders are distinct from Images, etc.
2. Same idea with the Images base folder:  F:\Images or F:\Pictures.
3. It might be easiest to just store your cover art as Folder.jpg next to the audio files.  The folder specifier in this File Locations section is the general art location, for files not stored next to their media files (Artists art, Series art, etc. or cover art when you don't want it stored adjacent to audio files).  Probably best to fully understand Cover Art for the rules.

You can set the other folders (e.g. Ripped {DVD, BD, Other} Video) wherever you'd like new files to be located.  Remember, these paths affect new files.  They can be recalled for use in the Rename dialog too.  So the question is simple - where do *you* want the new files of these types to be created?

The Cache locations are for conversions required when streaming (e.g. via DLNA) or when creating, say, lossy files for handhelds.  You can locate these on your F: drive too if you want (e.g. F:\Cache); where ever you have space is fine.

Program Files: Temporary files.  This is a directory for transient files.  Consider MC as owning this directory.  You can leave it as is.
Program Files: Library Backups.  The location where MC will store its automatic backups of its data (every 3 days or so).  Many place this directory somewhere in their own Documents folder (e.g. ...\My Documents\JRiver) so you can easily find these for Restore if necessary.