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[matshif]

The coming week I'll have a new PC (see below).
I want MC9.1 moved to this machine.
I have today about 35 GB of audio, image and video with Cover Art, Lyric and Bios located on c-drive, mostly audio.
Can anyone tell me how to move MC to the new PC or can I find information in Interact? I have search but without result.
Any help will be much welcomed. If somone have the knowledge to give this information in a Step by Step way I would be very happy.

Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo 800
Moderboard: ATX, AGP8x, FSB 800 MHz
Processor: Intel P4 3,2 GHz Hyper
Threading, Thermal Management
Cache: 512kb
Graphic: 128 MB DDR ATI Radeon 9800 Video in/out, DVI
Ram: 2*512 MB DDR RAM
320GB IDE HD 7200rpm (2x160 GB HDD)
Creative Audigy2 (Platinum)
CDRW/DVDRW: 4x2,4x8x16x10x16x
DVD: 16x  
1x IEEE 1394 Firewire.
Memorybird 64MB USB minne: Yes
Extra: external harddrive 40GB and a 5.1 speaker system.
Cardreader on front for SD, MMC, CF, MS, IBM and SM.

/Mats

[Hugo_Elbuho]

Let's see... this is what i would do:

1.- Backup your Database with the File*Library*Backup LIbrary feature.
2.- Backup the whole "Data" directory inside the current installation of MC. This is where Cover Arts is stored in the case you're not storing it inside the files.   (Actually i would copy all the Media Center sub-directories). Bear in mind that you should keep same path names for new MC install directory, and that holds true for file location on your new drives.
3.- Copy/Move your songs to the new drive. (remember to use the same paths as the old drive). If you wont'' be using the same drive on your new PC then don't bother with this, but if you aren't it'll depend on which OS you're using to change the drive's name (i.e from d: to e:, etc) if necessary.
4.- Install MC on the new PC.
5.- Copy your backed up "Data" directory inside the new Media Center directory.
6.- Restore your Database with the File*Library*Restore LIbrary.
7.- Uninstall MC from your old PC  

If you have plugins installed then you should install them again on your new turbo charged machine.

Well, that's as far as i can do for you, my friend. If someone sees i've missed something then feel free to object and add.

Peace

[matshif]

Thank You Hugo

I have just looked at your info, but I have an idea about moving all music from the C drive. I suppose that all the programs will be on this drive on the new PC and would like to have music files on the other drive. So have you any tips on your p.3?

XP Pro is my OS today and with the new.

Thanks again so far. I am soon going to work and will be back about 10 hours.

/Mats

[Hugo_Elbuho]

Well, i don't know of how much capacity your system drive is, but then what i would do is follow all the steps i described, but then as a last step just select all your media files inside your Media Library and use  the "Move/Copy Files" option to select the drive and directory which would hold all your media files. That would do the magic.  The case is that if you don't keep the original file locations, all links to your files will be broken and you won't be able to do anything else.

The real problem with this approach is that if you've actually got your files organized inside multiple directories and subdirectories, using this would move the files to a single directory. Hope this is not your case.  This is when you'll cry for MC not having a "Migrate files to a new drive keeping directory hierarchy" option.

Feel free to ask as much as you want and i'll answer as much as i want too  ... well, i meant as much as i know!. Again, this is my personal approach to your case, but there should be other opinions, my friend.

Take care!.

[matshif]

320GB IDE HD 7200rpm (2x160 GB HDD)

This is my drive capacity if that give you other ideas.

/Mats

[Wile E. One]

Extra: external harddrive 40GB

This looks promising....

What I would do.... give or take...

1) stick the external harddrive on your current system
2) use the copy/move tool inside MC to move all of your music to the ext. drive
3) backup your library
4) install MC on your new computer
5) plug the external drive into your new computer (change the drive letter to be the same as on the old system)
6) import a copy of your backed up library into new install of MC
7) Use copy/move tool to move all of your music onto the new system's internal harddrive (whereever you want)

Oh... and don't forget to cross your fingers  


(One last note: If the external harddrive is a firewire drive...and you don't have a firewire port on your current system... you'll either have to come up with a different way... or temporarily install the firewire card into your current sytem..and then move it back to the new one after you copy everything off of the old system)

[matshif]

I'm at work.

USB, old version, on my current PC and FireWire and USB 2 on the new one. I'm not sure if the external drive has FireWire but at least USB 2.0.

/Mats

[Jaguu]

Hi Matshif,

are the two PC connected by Ethernet? Then you could simply copy them over the net.

As you have 35GB of Audio files on your old disk and your new disk has 160 GB of space, simply copy it to the C drive of your new system and move the files afterwards from within MC9 to the second disk (D drive).
Check that your directory structure is properly recreated.

Some words of caution about backing up to an external drive! I had a disk crash last week (bad blocks and about 50-60 damaged files). If you have a simple file to file copy backup, you will spend a few hours to recreate 35GB on your disk (I have 33GB of data). It is better to use some bit-to-bit backup system such as Powerquest's Drive Image 7.0 or Symantec's Ghost. to copy whole disk partitions. This creates a copy of your data partition in a couple of minutes and restores in a couple of minutes. I learned the hard way spending 1 1/2 days just repairing, backing up and restoring!

[Hugo_Elbuho]

So... how did everything end up Mathis. What about those heavy weighted 35GB of files moving and heating up your hard drives as they run from A to B.  

[matshif]

So... how did everything end up Mathis. What about those heavy weighted 35GB of files moving and heating up your hard drives as they run from A to B.  

The coming week, Hugo. At least I have been told so, but I'll let you know.

So far thanks to all for your help and advice.

/Mats

[matshif]

Sorry guys!

I also include Wile E. One and Jaguu in my warm THANK YOU.

As I said: "I'll let you know".

/Mats

[matshif]

Hi guys
Yesterday evening the new "baby" arrieved. Lovely machine I must say.
A lots of boxes and stuff. As I see it's almost as Christmas Eve.
Will see to night if I get some time to move the whole MC and library to the new pc. I'll let you know.

[matshif]

Now, after I while I'm back with all my audiofiles on the new pc's D-drive.


What I did was.... Like Wil E. One said:

"1) stick the external harddrive on your current system
2) use the copy/move tool inside MC to move all of your music to the ext. drive
3) backup your library
4) install MC on your new computer
5) plug the external drive into your new computer (change the drive letter to be the same as on the old system)
6) import a copy of your backed up library into new install of MC
7) Use copy/move tool to move all of your music onto the new system's internal harddrive (whereever you want)

Oh... and don't forget to cross your fingers"

Maybe I forgot to cross my fingers couse some files showed up with corrupted settings, more exactly less than 60 out of over 8000. I'm more than happy with such result.

The whole took some time since I have only USB 1 on the old pc, but one's again thank you all for your support.

This Forum is the best.

[sraymond]

Mastif,

Out of curiosity, how big is the MPL file if you export your entire library?  The MPL is supposed to offer an easy way change drive letters when moving files between computers.   See the thread http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=9591 for a bit of an explanation.

I'm wondering if this is viable for a large library.

Scott-

[matshif]

Sorry, sraymond I'm late.
BY MPL, do you mean Playlist?

[sraymond]

MPL is an XML "language"...  you can export your entire library as an MPL and then change the drive letter of the [Filename] field using a text editor (find and replace).  The MPL can then be "imported" into your new library.

Scott-

[matshif]

MPL is an XML "language"...  you can export your entire library as an MPL and then change the drive letter of the [Filename] field using a text editor (find and replace).  The MPL can then be "imported" into your new library.

Scott-

I went to File>Export all playlist... and there is a folder in C:\Program\J River\Media Center\Data\Playlists which is little more than 6,53 MB.

Is this the answer?

[xen-uno]

Maybe too late but...

You ought to pick up a 40 GB internal HD (~ $50) to use as a system drive. Partition it as a C: (10 GB) and D: (balance). Install your system on C: (of course) and all applications on D:. Pick up an Adaptec 1200A RAID controller (~ $60) and setup your (2) 160's in a Level 1 RAID volume***. Put all user created files ("My Documents") and your media there. The beauty of this is that if the system drive dies you can either restore a backup or re-install the OS and apps easier (and quicker...since the big stuff is on the RAID volume). You'll get better general disk performance as well. If you keep apps out of the system partition, you'll find that the contents of C: will fit on 1 DVD with room to spare (even with the disk cache...but I'd move it to D:). This is true for D:, too. Works out well here.

10^-27

edit: ***The on-board IDE controller may support RAID, making the Adaptec controller unnecessary.

[sraymond]

MPL is an XML "language"...  you can export your entire library as an MPL and then change the drive letter of the [Filename] field using a text editor (find and replace).  The MPL can then be "imported" into your new library.

Scott-

I went to File>Export all playlist... and there is a folder in C:\Program\J River\Media Center\Data\Playlists which is little more than 6,53 MB.

Is this the answer?

Yup...  

You could have opened that file with a text editor, done a search on '<Field Name="Filename">d:\' and replaced with '<Field Name="Filename">e:\' or whatever.   Assuming that the media files are in the replace drive letter (i.e. "e" in this case), importing the MPL (using the normal Import Media fuinction in MC) should create all the proper library entries.

This seems like an easy way (rather than reassigning drive letters temporarily and then moving the files from with MC twice) to get around different drive letters.  You avoid the "move" operation altogether.

Now...  if your MPL was something like 100 MB, I'd wonder how long it takes to import.  But it should be quicker than moving the files I'd think!

Scott-