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More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: packyb on July 15, 2003, 07:28:38 pm

Title: Re-assigning Location in MC9?
Post by: packyb on July 15, 2003, 07:28:38 pm
I currently have all of my music stored on my C: drive, and just added a new internal hard drive F:. I now want to store all of my music on the F: drive, which I can do by right clicking the folder, and selecting "Send To."

My question is, how does that affect MC9? Will I need to import all of the files again - since the files that are currently in MC9 point to a folder on my C:? Is there something I can/should do in MC9 to re-assign the location of all of my music? (I'm talking about 500 cds.)

Thanks.
Title: Re: Re-assigning Location in MC9?
Post by: Omni on July 15, 2003, 09:09:58 pm
Interesting that it's in your "Send to..." menu.  As far as offline storage goes, usually only removable drives/media show up there, not internal hard drives.

And yes, if you move the files behind MC's back, you will need to import again.

The good news is there are numerous ways to move the files from within MC.  There's always the "Library Tools-->Move/Copy Disk File" command.  I use that a lot, and, of course, MC is aware of the move so it updates the library accordingly.

Also, maybe, if you just use MC's explorer (the "My Computer" tree branch) to move stuff, it may update the library accordingly.  I'm just guessing, though.  Can anyone confirm or deny this?

Omni
Title: Re: Re-assigning Location in MC9?
Post by: nila on July 16, 2003, 12:33:47 am
Ok,
If your moving 500 albums I personally wouldn't recommend doing it from inside MC.
v9 is a beta and although it's pretty stable and rock solid, 500 albums in my opinion are just too valuable to risk it with.

Do it with something like WinCommander, or explorer.

Close down MC, move all your files from say:

C:\My Music\......

to:

F:\My Music\.....

Then open up MC and do a find and replace.

Type in:
Find What:   C:\My Music\
Replace:  F:\My Music\

and then check: filename

Obviously replacing the names above with whatever they are going to be on your system.



Doing it this way just means you get to just exactly copy all your folders, with everything in them, and the exact same setup to your new hard drive.

If u'd like to re-arrange them and re-sort them onto your new drive however then use MC's: Rename from properties and choose the template u want all ur songs to be in on ur new drive.

One way of doing this nicely might be to use MC's album type to group your albums by various artist/single artist  or something.


I personally used the first method and it worked great. :)
Title: Re: Re-assigning Location in MC9?
Post by: Doof on July 16, 2003, 04:40:23 am
You can just use Find Replace and skip moving them with Explorer.

Just Find C:\ replace with F:\ and the files will be moved to the F: drive, preserving the folder structure and updating the database all at once.

You may want to try it with a couple of albums at a time at first just to be sure, but I'd be pretty confident in letting it do the whole thing all at once. 9.1 is really really stable on my system.

You should also be able to do this from MC's My Computer node, but depending on your folder structure it may not be as easy as the Find Replace method. If everything is in one My Music folder then you could just drag that from the C: drive to the F: drive (from within MC) and MC should handle it fine. There were some bugs with this in previous versions but they were hammered out.

Again, it is a beta, and so moving 500 albums at once may be a bit tricky. If 9.1 has been flaky for you, then you're probably better off using Nila's method. Not that I think it will corrupt any of your files or anything, but if it does crash, you may be left with files scattered over both drives.
Title: Re: Re-assigning Location in MC9?
Post by: packyb on July 16, 2003, 07:37:37 am
Omni, you are right - "Send To" does not work - although the folks at western digital assured me that it would. Can I just cut and paste the folder, or do I need a program to help with this?

(Once I get them moved, I'll try the find/replace recommendation. Thank you all.)
Title: Re: Re-assigning Location in MC9?
Post by: nila on July 16, 2003, 08:17:07 am
Go into explorer,
Right click on the folder containing all your songs,
choose cut,

go to your new location, right click and choose paste


Start praying.


et Viola!
Title: Re: Re-assigning Location in MC9?
Post by: j_c_livingston on July 16, 2003, 09:29:35 am
Quote
Just Find C:\ replace with F:\ and the files will be moved to the F: drive, preserving the folder structure and updating the database all at once.

You may want to try it with a couple of albums at a time at first just to be sure, but I'd be pretty confident in letting it do the whole thing all at once. 9.1 is really really stable on my system.  


I have done this with a library of about 8000 tracks and it worked fine.  (v9.1.210)
Title: Re: Re-assigning Location in MC9?
Post by: nila on July 16, 2003, 10:20:21 am
did u do this after or before moving them in explorer?
Title: Re: Re-assigning Location in MC9?
Post by: Doof on July 16, 2003, 07:52:45 pm
I've done it without using Explorer at all. Works like a charm.

Either way will work. But this way saves a step or three.
Title: Re: Re-assigning Location in MC9?
Post by: LisaRCT on July 17, 2003, 02:54:50 pm
I would COPY the files to the new drive rather than to MOVE them . . . .

After verifying that they are OK, then you can delete them from the old drive.

This should be alot safer as even if they somehow get lost or corrupted you still have them in the original drive & folder until after they are found to be safely copied..