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More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: dNj on December 14, 2005, 09:53:35 pm

Title: Copying dead tags to new imports
Post by: dNj on December 14, 2005, 09:53:35 pm
This past weekend i lost about 6gb of music on one of my drives.  I'm almost finished ripping the music back to my drive, but I really don't want to have tag all those files again.  I havent delete the dead files from MC yet so I'm wondering is there a way to copy the tags from the dead files to the newly imported files?
Title: Re: Copying dead tags to new imports
Post by: GHammer on December 15, 2005, 02:31:12 am
If the files are named the same and in the same location as the lost ones, you can use Library Tools Update Tags (from library)
Title: Re: Copying dead tags to new imports
Post by: Alex B on December 15, 2005, 04:20:08 am
If the album files were in separate folders and the individual filenames are difficult to recreate without the library information this workaround may help:

- Rename the missing library files inside MC using a simple rule. For example, use just the track numbers. Ignore the possible warnings about missing files.

- Name the newly acquired files similarly: 01.xxx, 02.xxx, 03.xxx etc and use a folder rule that places them in the correct folder structure. If you are going to rip the new files with MC use a different library for ripping and keep the original library intact.

- After you have the new files in place use MC tools for applying the library information and renaming the files properly.

Remember to make a library backup first and build a working backup strategy for the media files so you don't need to do this ever again.

I have found external USB2 or Firewire HDs useful for media file backups. I keep two backup copies of my about 500 GB of data. Currently I have a pair of big drives near my main server PC and another pair in a safe place. I keep the nearby drives powered only when making backups. I make incremental backups almost daily and exchange the backup drives weekly or so. The latest backups are always on the nearby backup drives and the safe place has another a bit older copy of my data. Sometimes I have made mistakes and made a backup before noticing them, but I have been able to restore the files from the older copy.