iTunes - restore troubles

[[AK]Clay]

Did a wipe of the main HDD and upgraded to Windows 7. iTunes library resides on a separate external HDD. That external HDD has been assigned a new drive letter by windows. Windows is not offering the original drive letter as an option.

Upon a fresh install of iTunes, how do I relink it to my original library, now that it has a different drive letter?

[[AK]StitchJones]

Re-creating the iTunes Library file

1. Quit iTunes.

2. Locate your iTunes folder.
Operating System Default location of iTunes Folder
Microsoft Windows 7 \Users\[your username]\My Music\

3. Open your iTunes folder.

4. Drag the iTunes Music Library.xml to the Desktop

5. Drag the following file from your iTunes folder to the Trash:
Mac OS X "iTunes Library" (in versions of iTunes prior to 4.9 this was called "iTunes 4 Music Library")
Microsoft Windows "iTunes Library.itl" (in versions of iTunes prior to 4.9 this was called "iTunes 4 Music Library.itl")

6. Open iTunes.

Important: Do not add any content into iTunes at this point.

7. Choose File > Library > Import Playlist.

8. Navigate to the iTunes Music Library.xml file on the Desktop.

* Windows users: Click Open.

After re-creating your library, any devices that you sync with iTunes (Apple TV, iPod, iPhone) will see your iTunes library as a new library and will completely resync.

If your Podcasts list in iTunes is empty after following these steps, learn how to add them back into iTunes.

If the iTunes Music Library.xml file is not available, learn how to add files back to the Library (because the iTunes Music Library.xml file is not available, playlists and other information will not be available).

[[AK]Hylander]

Unless I'm misunderstanding your question - you probably have all your songs listed with a '!' on them, correct?

If so, you should be able to point to the new directory for location and it should automatically pick up those songs. If you just add the new folder and drive letter, you will end up with duplicates which you will have to manually delete.

Unless you have a specific reason not to, can't you just start with a blank iTunes music list (delete everything) and then just add 'folder' which will automatically re-import all your music, albums, etc? I've done this several times and iTunes does it rather easily.

[[AK]Clay]

Thank you gentlemen, I'll try these tonight. The problem was that since the drive letter had changed, simply pointing to the new path under advanced properties was not working. And importing the library database file was not working either, I'm guessing because it had the old drive letter in all the file paths.

[[AK]StitchJones]

Doing what Hylander suggested worked in older versions of ITunes 4.4(previous). The steps I listed are what needs to be done with the newest version to get it working again. Embedded database pointers are such a pain. But in terms of a smooth flowing database catalog it's wonderful when working.

[Slaughter]

Should be able to go in iTunes menu Edit>Preferences then go to the Advanced tab and change the drive letter in the iTunes media folder location.

Not sure if that would result in duplicates or not, though.

That said, Stitch probably has the best idea for getting around duplicates.

[[AK]StitchJones]

Good point on the duplicates Slaughter. The last thing you want is a 18,000 song database to become 36,000 with duplicates.