iTunes - Missing

[mpare]

Would one of you know why iTunes would "forget" the link to the library of songs that I have purchased either through iTunes or previously imported from CDs that I have purchased? I'd like to direct the program as to where it should look in Vista for these songs so that it might overcome its senility. I know that the iTunes music folder is located in my Music folder, which appears under my user name. However, I cannot seem to find where imported albums/songs have been stored. I know that they are somewhere on my computer as I just reimported one album that should already have been there and the program asked if I wanted to replace the existing songs - songs that the program could not previously find!

Thanks for your help.

[larry]

Use search to find your music. just put in the name of a song you have downloaded and it should find it and show where it is stored.

[mpare]

I know where the search command is for searching the iTunes Store, but I have no clue where it is for my own Music library. Could you be more precise? Please keep in mind that the inventory of all my songs appears in the Music Library, if that helps, but the program is not them able to make the link to songs.

Use search to find your music. just put in the name of a song you have downloaded and it should find it and show where it is stored.

[lms]

In windows,

click on the start button,
then the search button. Select "pictures, music, video",
then click on music and search.

Unless you deleted them though I don't know why itunes would have "lost" them.

[mpare]

Thanks for the suggestion. I never deleted them, so it's a mystery to me what has happened.

I've learned another thing. I assumed (reasonably, I would have thought) that I could import into iTunes on my main computer all of the songs and albums from my iTunes player. No can do apparently. The music folder is hidden, so I cannot see the songs and albums to import them!!! Since I paid for all of this inventory I am more than mildly annoyed with Apple. Their preoccupation with copyright and proprietary infringements have caused them to design products that are of limited use to their customers. That is not good business from my perspective, but that is the subject of another potential thread.

In windows,

click on the start button,
then the search button. Select "pictures, music, video",
then click on music and search.

Unless you deleted them though I don't know why itunes would have "lost" them.

[jvincent]

There are third party apps that will allow you to get the songs off your iPod onto a different computer.

IIRC they won't transfer DRM'd songs from the store but CD rips will work just fine.

[lms]

Thanks for the suggestion. I never deleted them, so it's a mystery to me what has happened.

I've learned another thing. I assumed (reasonably, I would have thought) that I could import into iTunes on my main computer all of the songs and albums from my iTunes player. No can do apparently. The music folder is hidden, so I cannot see the songs and albums to import them!!! Since I paid for all of this inventory I am more than mildly annoyed with Apple. Their preoccupation with copyright and proprietary infringements have caused them to design products that are of limited use to their customers. That is not good business from my perspective, but that is the subject of another potential thread.

Your itunes player has no knowledge of who the songs belong to, it is simply linked (and locked) to the itunes library it downloaded the songs from. Otherwise everyone would just plug their friends player into their library and copy away.

What did you do with the original copy of the songs? Sounds like they were on an unbacked up hard drive that died (from your other thread)?