Computer Audio Asylum

Switching From PC to MAC..Need Help!!

63.226.211.248

[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ Thread: Display Email Next ] [ Computer Audio Asylum ]

jeffrey_t

(A)

I'm switching from PC to MAC and I need help moving my music library. I have stored all my music in WAV on FAT32 using iTunes on a 500GIG external drive. When I plug in the hard drive to the MAC, iTunes does not recognize the music, although MAC's Finder program recognizes the files with strings ETC.
Any help would be great!!

Follow Ups:

Re: Switching From PC to MAC..Need Help!! - division 13:10:57 09/30/06 (0)
This is what I suggest, I'm pretty sure it has worked for me in the past:
Pull your whole iTunes folder (the one in My Music with all your library info and xml fliles) from your PC and replace the corresponding folder on the Mac. As long as you have the same version of iTunes or better on the Mac, these files are interchangeable.
Boot up iTunes on the Mac and in the Preferences/Advanced/General set iTunes Music Folder location to the external drive it is currently set at on the PC. Also check the box for "Keep iTunes folder organized" After hitting OK, iTunes will ask you if you want to update Song locations. Hit ok, let it do what it needs to do, and you should be ok from there.
In the long run however, I would reformate that FAT32 to HFS. You are much better off in the mac environment with HFS+ Journaled.
congrats man!!! you won't regret it. - danny kaey 18:02:10 09/25/06 (2)
:)
- Re: congrats man!!! you won't regret it. - jeffrey_t 18:46:25 09/25/06 (1)
  So far I do...none of my music will work!
  - sorry don't have much experience with .wav files... - danny kaey 10:18:18 09/26/06 (0)
    I never use .wav files... flac or lame mp3...
    hope you can fix the issue!
You have to let the Mac build a new library - hermanesque 10:50:11 09/24/06 (7)
iTunes won't just recognize the files. From ITunes menus select "add folder to library," or drag and drop the drive onto "library" on the menu list on the left side of iTunes.
- Re: You have to let the Mac build a new library - jeffrey_t 19:46:33 09/25/06 (6)
  Thanks for the post, but that did not work. ITunes did not see the Artist and album. Any other suggestions?
  - Re: You have to let the Mac build a new library - marcusm 00:06:44 09/26/06 (3)
    If you still have access to your Windows system and have enough disk space, probably the easiest thing to do would be to start up iTunes under Windows and tell it to convert all your wav files to either aiff (uncompressed equivalent to wav files, but unlike wav files, all the tag information is stored in the actual audio file rather than the iTunes database) or Apple Lossless format. Then you should be able to copy the files over without any problems. I'm afraid just moving the iTunes XML file over to the Mac probably won't work (the pathnames are all hard-coded, I believe, which won't transfer, even if the file formats are compatible). Try it on an album or two first to make sure everything works reliably, then start up the conversion and let it go (could take quite a while if you have lots of files). If you're short on disk space, do the conversion in chunks. This isn't really a Mac vs. PC problem, you would have a similar problem moving from one PC to a different PC (unless you could keep the path names identical); it's a weakness of the way iTunes stores tag data for wav files. Fortunately, I discovered this important difference between ripping to wav vs. ripping to aiff before I ripped my whole library (I have moved my library back and forth between a PC and a Mac several times).
    P.S.: To avoid having 2 copies of each file in every directory (one wav and one aiff/ALAC), first set the iTunes "Music Folder Location" (under advanced preferences) to a new directory (could even be a shared drive on your Mac, if you have the networking set up), THEN run the conversion. That won't move the existing files, but the converted files will go to the new location.
    - I think it will work - hermanesque 07:46:45 09/26/06 (2)
      "the pathnames are all hard-coded, I believe, which won't transfer,"
      Yes, but the path name is the same isn't it. The Mac sees the external drive with the same name as the PC did. Not sure it would work but worth a try.
      Your idea to do the conversion on the PC is a good one though. That also provides a backup copy, (original wav + new conversion)
      I agree a new path in iTunes preferences will store the new files in a different location for easier houskeeping, but I still think you will have every song in your library twice since it adds them as it converts. I don't think there is a way around this.
      - Re: I think it will work - marcusm 00:33:05 09/27/06 (1)
        
        In Reply to: I think it will work posted by hermanesque on September 26, 2006 at 07:46:45:
        
        On the pathname issue, it can't hurt to try. (My suspicion is that the unix-type path of OS X will be enough different than the drive-letter path of Windows to break it, but far stranger things have happened...) As for the multiple files listed in iTunes, there are actually several ways around this:
        1) The best way is to simply sort on file-type ("Kind" is the column name I think; you will probably have to right-click on the column headings and check that one to show it), then delete all the old wav's (or whatever, being sure to tell it NOT to delete the original files). You could also do something similar with a smart playlist, though I think you have to "option-backspace" to delete files from within a playlist.
        2) Another way is, after doing the conversion (and verifying everything looks good), to delete all the items in your library (but don't let it delete the original files), then add them back in from the directory you want to keep.
        Of course, if you have any manual playlists, you'll probably have to change them over to the new files manually (which you should do before either of the suggestions above, or you will lose them). Personally, if it were me, after I got everything transferred over and had verified it all worked, I would ditch the original wav files and use that space to make a backup copy using the newer format. (Well, okay, I would probably let it sit for a few months first, just to make SURE I didn't screw something up somehow...)
        One other bit of advice: On the Mac side of iTunes, there is a whole series of Applescript plugins (Google "Doug's Applescripts for iTunes") that can really aid in editing tags (i.e., fixing the often inaccurate info automatically entered from the internet for classical CD's); it really extends iTunes tag management features a lot over the Windows version.
        Good luck.
        
        Re: I think it will work - e_desilva 13:38:10 09/28/06 (0)
        
        In Reply to: Re: I think it will work posted by marcusm on September 27, 2006 at 00:33:05:
        
        I seem to recall that trying to do a similar thing I ended up editing the XML library file, and it did work--its just a beeeeeg text file. If I recall right, I copied the Mac library XML, moved it to my Windows machine, and set up a test library on the PC. I can't remember if I had to cut-and-paste the body of the Mac XML into the PC file, or cut-and-paste the header data of the PC file onto the Mac file, but in either event, I also had to do a global search-and-replace to fix the beginning of the file references. Wasn't too hard, but it took forever--you have to use something like wordpad so it stays a nice text file.
  - sorry, I misread your original post, you may be screwed but there is hope - hermanesque 22:29:25 09/25/06 (1)
    I missed the part about your use of WAV files.
    In MP3, Apple lossless, flac, etc. the artist name, album title, genre, length, track number, artwork etc. are all stored as tags attached to the file. When you import them to ITunes it builds a database from these tags and stores the info in two files in the itunes folder, iTunes Library.itl and itunes music library.xml.
    You can't tag a wav file. All the info for those files was stored in the library database when you ripped them or when you edited the file with the get info function. Lose the library and you lose the information.
    I think if you move those library files from the PC to the iTunes folder on the MAC you will get your info back. Hopefully it is the same format and the Mac can read it.. I think it can.
    I would then convert them to Apple Lossless so if your library gets corrupted you can rebuild it from the files. iTunes will convert them, well, it actually makes a lossless copy to wherever you tell it in the import preferences, and leaves the originals as they were. It will put the new ones in the library too so you'll have 2 of every song in the library unless you delete them. I don't know how to get around this other than when you are done converting, move the library files to a backup folder so you save the wave file info, and rebuild the library by dropping in all the lossless files.
    - Why can't Apple make transfer of iTunes libraries easy? - dsdreamer 11:53:04 09/26/06 (0)
      It seems like an oversight.
      Many people have $1000's invested in their iTunes library, and yet there is no officially sanctioned and reliable way for moving a collection of iTunes from one PC to another.
      You should be able to create an iTunes archive, which is a single file that can be read by another instance of iTunes. Existing DRM would prevent abuse.
      So why not? I don't want to guess how many people will lose their precious tunes while upgrading from XP to Vista.
      --dsdreamer

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

VH Audio

You can not post to an archived thread.