iTunes library- Lost all apps, books, tones

[Ish_apple]

Hi

I have an iPhone 3GS. My laptop hard disk crashed and I had to re-install windows. I managed to recover the entire 'my music' folder along with the iTunes folder using a data recovery software. I re-installed iTunes on my laptop and copied over the entire 'my music' folder alongwith the iTunes folder to the new 'my music' folder.

When I opened up iTunes, I got an error message saying that my library file is damaged and iTunes has recovered it and named the file as 'iTunes library (damaged). iTunes did open up but had only 500 odd songs instead of the original 1000 odd. All the playlists were intact, some podcasts started appearing under 'Songs'. But I lost a lot of podcasts, all apps, books and tones. I still have all the apps under "Mobile applications" in the iTunes folder and podcasts in the 'downloads' folder. But, iTunes just won't put recognize them in the library. When I try to play a podcast by double clicking the file directly from the folder, iTunes does play it but still won't recognize it. I have already connected to the iTunes store, authorized the computer again but nothing seems to work. All apps, tones, books etc won't appear in the library.

How do I get everything back in the library? I tried the same method (copying over the entire iTunes folder a couple of years back when I swtiched to a new computer and it worked perfect). Of course, everything is intact on my iPhone but I am afraid of syncing it with the library and transfering purchases, in case I lose everything on my iPhone too. I tried changing the Library persistent ID in the XML file but that wasn't necessary since I had copied over the original XML file so it was already updated.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Ishaan

 

[willerz2]

Back up your entire iPhone onto the computer manually. Download iExplorer here

iExplorer - iPhone, iPad Music & File Transfer App - Mac & PC

Make sure you have iTunes on the computer since it does use iTunes as its core. Version doesn't matter as long as it supports your device and iOS. Install, run it as admin. Connect your device. Once you've connected your device, it should root your device, showing your device, a small breakdown of your usage, then you should see a few tabs in the center-lower right portion of the screen, and some buttons that should say "Music", "Photos", "Contacts", "Videos" etc etc depending on the tab you click. If you click on any of those buttons, it'll bring you to the directory where they're stored. Now on your desktop, create folders and name them correspondingly to the things that you're backing up to keep it organized.

Now select all the items in each folder, and export them into the folder on your computer that corresponds with the data being backed up, so your music would be backed up to the folder labeled "Music" to keep things organized. Now if you want to restore or anything, once you've backed everything up and restored, all you have to do is drag and drop them back onto your iPhone folder by folder (have to select all and drop them, you can't drag and drop an actual folder) and it'll sync.

Applications you don't have to worry about, they're saved on iTunes' server so they know what apps you've bought and they won't double charge you. Also, in iTunes, go to the Store tab on the top, and click Authorize this PC, then sign in with your AppleID and you should be good to start syncing. But like you said, the steps above are performed just in case your iPhone and PC decide to wipe each other out.

 

[Ish_apple]

Hi

Thanks a lot. But, the syncing didn't really help except for the apps.