iTunes giving me problems

Hello. Not sure if I posted in the right section, but I need help lol.

Let me just tell you what started all this lol. I have a laptop with windows vista. Around a week ago. I had downloaded AIM. In doing so it caused my wireless connection to go nuts on me. So in order to fix that. I had to restore my C drive. My drives are partitioned into 3 seperate drives. C, D and E. Nothing is saved in C besides OS files and the basic files that are in there when you first bought the computer. I use Acronis Image Ready to restore my drives. I took a "screenshot" of each drive when it was brand new. So that if anything went wrong. I could restore whatever drive was corrupted so that is was "brand new" again. D is pretty much an empty drive. And E is where all my files and downloaded software is. Including Itunes.

Now when I restored my C drive. It deletes the C drive, and then restores it to the screenshot of when it was brand new. I did not touch the D or E drive. So anyhow. The C drive is now restored....Connect etc works fine. I go around testing all my programs, making sure they are all working. Everything works...except iTunes. (The hardest program to redo, of course lol) So I went to the file iTunes is in, and try to click the link to open iTunes. I get this error message:

QuickTime was not found. Quicktime is required to run iTunes. Please reinstall iTunes.

So I figured..maybe QuickTime somehow ended up on my C drive...which I just restored. So I reinstalled QuickTime, and tried to open iTunes again. I get this message now:

iTunes needs to be repaired to work with Vista. Use the "Programs and Features" control panel to repair iTunes."

So I go to "Programs and Features" iTunes is not on the populated list at all. So I'm stumped. I really don't want to uninstall and reinstall iTunes, and have to redo all my playlists. I've already done that 2 times, and it is a huge pain. Does anyone have any advice on what I can do? Or what the problem is? Obviously it is something to do with me restoring my C drive, because these issues were not present before hand. But I have restored the drive before, and didn't get these problems. Any help would be greatly appreciated, because I'm clueless now :/.

#481638

Uninstall and reinstall. It's probably going to be the only way. Backup the iTunes directory in the My Music folder. The key file (in addition to the iTunes Music and iTunes Artwork folders) is the "iTunes Music Library.xml" file (if you can, and you haven't changed anything, it wouldn't hurt to Export it again (File -> Export Library) just incase this one got corrupted). After you reinstall, copy and paste the iTunes Music folder in the iTunes directory. Then in iTunes, go to File and Import and import the XML.

#481639

I don't see any files ending in .xml. All the files in my iTunes folder end in .rtf or .dll, .ocx and .exe I don't see any of the other folders that you mentioned either. Are they called something different in the actual folder?? Or is it inside of another folder inside the iTunes folder. I am fairly good with the computer. But I must admit that files and knowing what is what for a program is not my speciality. So if you could maybe elaborate a bit more? ITunes is in my E drive, with a seperate folder of its own. Here is a snapshot of my iTunes folder lol, sorry but I am illiterate when it comes to file names etc. Thanks alot though. I really appreciate you taking the time to help me out

http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m186/ma...006/Capture.jpg

#481643

My Documents -> My Music, not the program's folder.

Backup the iTunes directory in the My Music folder.

If you did not allow iTunes to organize your music (Preferences -> Advanced -> top two checkbox options), your music will be elsewhere (the File -> Backup to Disk may be a better option so you know you get all of the music). In fact, I think a simple un-installation will keep your music put, but just to be safe .

#481645

All my music was downloaded and I have it in a seperate file. But I am wondering if theres a way to get around reinstalling iTunes, because last time I did that. I had to redo all my Playlists. Which takes forever, because I have too many songs lol. So I was hoping the error message could be solved without having to reinstall iTunes O.o. I'm not worried about losing the songs, because I still have those. Its just setting up the playlists that is time consuming and irritating.

#481647

The XML is an easy to read export of the database and playlists. You can open it up and see (just don't save anything). It's not the file it uses when it opens (that is the "iTunes Library.itl", but it generates an XML backup every so often). When you import the XML, it will contain the information and paths to all of the music files, thus the need to backup the iTunes Library. Essentially, the XML file is your database and playlists.

#481648

Ok...but i don't see that file anywhere. All my songs are in a folder and i would copy and paste them over to itunes, not import....I don't know. I just don't want to redo all my playlists again

#481649

Try the program on this page to export playlists from your itunes file without running itunes:

http://www.ericdaugherty.com/dev/itunesexport/

Then you can import (drag and drop) the generated m3u files into a new install of itunes and you'll have your playlists back.

#481757