Music collection

[Da Floyd]

I have just purchased a new computer, and have moved all my music (about 45GB) from a removable drive to the new computer. I have also re-installed everything that I had before that was DB related, and copied my "Illustrate" program files to the new computer. (Which, by the way, my registered power pack is still registered on the new computer!!) So now when I open DB Amp and my "Music Collection" comes up on the screen, all my music I had before is there just as it was before I got the new computer. But that is good and bad, the bad part is that it wants to play music from the removable "F" drive, not on the "C" drive that it is currently on. I still have the removable drive with all the music on it, I simply copied everything to the new computer, and I still have the old computer, so if there is a fix using these I still have them. How do I get DB amp to recognize the new location?? I tried going to "Collection" in my Music Collection, and highlighting missing files, went to "Locate Missing Files", and DB stopped responding, too much at once or something. All my tunes were rated, doing this all over seems way too redundant, especially since everything is there, just in a different spot. I don't really want DB to "Arrange Music" in this case, my music is broken up into many different folders, parent and sub-folders, and each one is different. CD's are broken up by a parent folder/Artist/Album/Track #-Artist-Track. Singles are broken up by parent folder/Artist/Artist-Track. All other Parent Folders have their own configuration. Pleeeeease help, I want to get back to using the computer and listening to music, not just setting it up!! Any ideas???

[Spoons]

Re: Music collection

i think the easiest way would be to open your music collection on the removable drive and then save collection as "c" drive or wherever it is your new location is. this is because insdie the .mcc file is the location path of where it was last saved.

that should work?

[Da Floyd]

Re: Music collection

Not sure if I understand correctly or if I didn't explain things enough, maybe both. The old computer used the drive letter "F" for all my music(removable drive), on the new computer drive letter "F" is already used by the CD Rom. So if I plug the removable hard drive into the new computer, DB Amp still wont recognize this is where my music is, or should I say used to be, the removable drive wont be recognized as "F". Should I use the old computer, plug in the removable drive, and on that computer all will be normal, just like it used to be, DB Amp is still working and drive "F" will be where my music is. But my "C" drive on that computer is tiny, I can't put all the music on that drive, which is why I went with the removable drive 2 years ago. Not sure how to save collection as "c" drive, as you suggest. I hope this makes my problem clearer for you, I appreciate any help you can give me.
I forgot so say it before on the original question, but everything about this program, or set or programs is just the best. Windows Media Player and Itunes and everything else out there has nothing on DB Power products, love it all. Thanks for all the help

[Spoons]

Re: Music collection

hmmmm.... well you could do a re scan on the removable drive and it really shouldn't stop responding when you do. but i that method would loose any ratings. so yeh the list missing files should retain ratings.

when you say you copied everything over did you re install dbpoweramp on the new PC or just copy it over?

we were discussing how to edit .mcc and .mmg files for portability but i cant find the thread i said that in now. there is i think a slight gap for portability when it comes to moving music files around and retaining ratings and how many times played etc...

i am wondering if mapping the external drive as "F" would work? then loacate missing files on that drive and see how it goes.

[Da Floyd]

Re: Music collection

See if I can get this right for you. I also put all "*.exe" files on the removable drive, so I first installed all of the DB programs, renamed the program folder to dBpoweramp 2, and then copied the entire program folder from the old computer to the new one using a thumb drive, and that one was named dBpoweramp. My new computer now has 2 folders inside "Illustrate", it now goes "C/Program Files/Illustrate/dBpoweramp" and also "dBpoweramp 2". Since everything was installed with the program looking for files inside dBpoweramp, and not dBpoweramp 2, I thought this would work, and it did to a point. I kept the new files as dBpoweramp 2 just in case it didn't work and then I would delete the folder dBpoweramp and rename the dBpoweramp 2 folder back to the way it was. Hope this isn't too confusing, but I didn't want to delete anything until I knew things were working good, just renamed them.
Mapping the external drive as "F", not sure how to do that??? Would I have to turn off the CD Rom to be able to use that letter?? Don't assume I know anything, (ha-ha) some things I have done before and some things I haven't. Mapping a drive I haven't, but with a little push and some advice, what could possibly go wrong??? Hmmmm, maybe I should make those restore discs they talked about in the manual. Thanks again

[Spoons]

Re: Music collection

well first things first. you need to install a fresh copy of dbpoweramp on the new PC as it uses the registry entries. just coppying over will not work.

[Da Floyd]

Re: Music collection

Had to go away for a few hours, I'm back now. I did what you said, re-installed the amp, I used the file "dBpower AMP-r2". It said there was an older version and to delete it, which I did. Then the amp re-installed. I still have the same problem, all the music is still listed in MMC, but with the path going to the "F" drive. I tried going to "Collection", then "Music Collection", and highlighting the missing files, which said they were all missing. If I point to the exact folder the files are in, everything is there and the amp will play them and MMC will recognize them, all info is there including ratings and tag info and the new location is there. So far so good, but the down-side is that most of the music is at least 4 or 5 folders deep. The amp, or MMC will not locate my files unless I point to the exact folder they are in, not a parent folder. Doing this for 4000 files will take a bit of time. Even if I go up one level and point to a parent folder, MMC will not locate my files, it just freezes up. All of my music is in a large parent folder called "All Music" then from there it is broken into several sub-categories, such as "CD" or "Album" or "Tape", depending on where the source came from, after that comes the Artist Folder, then comes the Album Folder, and lastly is the Track #-Artist-File Name. On some of the folders, there might be 10 or so files inside, but in some there might only be one song inside the folder, so doing this 4000 times will take some time. There has got to be a better way.......

[LtData]

Re: Music collection

Does it freeze when you point it to the directory containing the Artist folders and the rest of the heirarchy? For me, I point it to the folder containing my music in a heirarchy of artist/album/filename stuff. dAP detects them all just fine. Have you tried the release3 beta?

[Da Floyd]

Re: Music collection

Hi LtData, to answer your question, yes it freezes up when I point it to anything but the exact folder they are in. Even up one level to Artist folder and it freezes up, it has to be pointed to the Album folder, no parents allowed!! This is a brand new HP M1270N computer, 1GB Ram, 250 GB hard Drive, XP Media Center 2005 Edition, so when it freezes up something went wrong. I gave it an hour this morning to locate some of the files from a parent folder, and when I came back still nothing. I tried to shut down the program and it was not responding, had to bring up the task manager to end the process. No, I haven't tried the release 3 beta, any big changes there???? I'll take a minute to check out the postings on that subject. Thanks for the advice

[LtData]

Re: Music collection

I haven't tried the release 3 beta, any big changes there???? I'll take a minute to check out the postings on that subject. Thanks for the advice

Yes, there are a good number or changes. Download here: http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?t=2045

[Da Floyd]

Re: Music collection

I downloaded the Beta version, and it doesn't work any differently than the R2 version, as far as locating the files. I haven't been able use the player to see any other differences, my music still isn't located. I have the "Search Sub-folders" checked off in the preferences, and it seems to be able to search only the first sub-folder, which would be the "Album" sub-folder not the "Artist" sub-folder, the way I have it organized is: C/MyMusic/AllMusic/CD's/Artist/Album/Track Number-Artist-File Name. If I have to do everything by only going up one parent folder, this will take days to complete. If I could go up just one more parent folder (2 or 3 would be even better) then it would cut down the time a lot. I would even consider wiping out the entire music collection on the new computer (it's all still on the removable drive) and letting DB move all the files to a different location, if that would work. But not sure if I can get it done that way, Old computer and new computer are not hooked together, and removable drive only shows up as "F" drive on the old computer, it shows up as "K" on the new one, "F" is a CD Rom. There has got to be a good way of doing this, someone out there has purchased a new computer in the last few years and had to move their music files to a different location, with a different drive letter. I appreciate everyones help, just looking for a bit more right now.

[LtData]

Re: Music collection

I recently moved my music collection from my internal HDD to an external drive. Using the r3 beta, it scanned two folders deep and detected all my music. That is, I pointed it to the music folder, and it scanned the artist folder and the album folder inside of the artist folder.

I'm not sure why its not doing this for you. Mabye, as a test, copy 5 of your artist folders to another folder, "TEMP" or something, containing only those 5 artist folders, and have dAP scan the TEMP folder. Mabye you just have too many subfolders and it locks up? dAP scanned my 43 folders and their 89 or so subfolders.

[Da Floyd]

Re: Music collection

Good news and bad news.... I did your test, and it worked with no problems at all, and it took only a minute to find them. So I can go more than 1 parent folder deep. The bad news is that when I deleted the folders from the "Temp" location, and had MMC Highlight the missing files again, and selected the exact same files to locate, it wont do it. I am not going any deeper in the sub-folder, I pointed to "Temp" and MMC found the files inside that folder, which went "Temp/Artist/album/File". When I went "CD's/Artist/album/File" it will not find them, or at least hasn't found them in 25 minutes. The only difference I see is that there is much more to look thru to find the right files. When the files were in the temp folder, that was the only thing in there. When MMC has to look inside the "CD's folder, I have 3,782 files in that one folder alone, with 402 sub-folders (adding up to 18.2GB). That is that one folder alone, within the parent folder called "All Music" I have 42.5 GB, 1,058 folders, 8380 files.
Hold on a minute here---- I left MMC doing its thing while I was typing this, and after 1/2 hour it did find the files that were in one of the folders, so I have it searching for more right now in a different folder. I know I left it going the other day for an hour or so, with no result, so I ended the process. Might be if I had let it go for one hour and 5 minutes it would have worked. I'll just let it go and see what happens, this folder it is searching inside now is a biggie, but I'll let it go for 5 or 6 hours if I have to. Hopefully this will be the end of the troubles, with me just being a bit impatient. Thanks again to everybody for their help. Great products, great support, all for a couple of bucks....