Lost power while listening to iTunes, powered back on and everything is gone.

[elocs]

No music. All the songs are gone and the info for iTunes said it was created about 5 minutes ago. So is my music gone forever? I am glad I have much of it backed up on my nearly 6 year old pc, but this majorly sucks.

[SeattleVet]

1. Go to the Apple web site, support section, and enter the

discussion forums (they recently changed the site, and these aren't as easy to find anymore). In the iTunes forum there are several message threads about how to recover a music library in a situation like yours. Depending on what you are seeing, there are several different fixes for the problem. A search should turn up the solution you need. If not, leave a message there and you'll usually get a lot of help very quickly.

Hope this helps!


Here's a link drectly to the iTunes forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=149

[Poiuyt]

2. Are your music files still in the computer?

Check to see:

Music>iTunes>iTunes Music

You can also do a Spotlight search for one of your songs to make sure it's still on your hard drive.

[elocs]

3. Evidently the music is still on my hard drive, but got blown out of iTunes.

The Music>iTunes>iTunes Music showed zero items, but searching with Spotlight brought up the song.
Now, is there an easier way of recovering these songs than trying to remember them one by one?

[Poiuyt]

4. You can try resetting the default location

I'm guessing that all the files were moved together somewhere.

To change the default location of imported files:
In iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences.
Click Advanced and then click General.
Click Change and select a new location for your files.
From now on, new songs and other items you import will be stored in the new location. Songs you've already imported stay in their current location.

To restore the iTunes Music folder as the default storage location, click Reset (in the Advanced pane of iTunes preferences).

Make sure the Keep iTunes organized button is selected.

Also:

Copying all your iTunes files to one location
Depending on how you've imported songs, videos, and other items into iTunes, your library can include items that are located in various places on your computer's hard disk or other locations.

You can place a copy of all the files in your library in your iTunes Music folder so that, for example, it's easier to copy your library to a new computer.

To copy all your iTunes files to your iTunes Music folder:

Choose Advanced > Consolidate Library.

Any iTunes file located outside the iTunes Music folder remains in its original location, and a copy of it is placed in your iTunes Music folder.

[elocs]

5. I got them back.

Using the link to Apple.com supplied by SeattleVet I found the answer eventually. It was simple inasmuch as I just found the iTunes music folder and then dragged it onto iTunes where all the songs were recopied. Thanks to all for the help. If it happens again, I'll know.

[SeattleVet]

6. Glad I could help!

The Support Discussion forums at Apple have been a help to me a few times, but I usually forget about using it until I've beat my head against the wall for a bit.

[elocs]

7. I immediately tried the first solution presented and it didn't work,

then when I went back to the thread the person who had the same problem as I did said it didn't work for them so I should have read a little further before I tried it. The next solution was actually more simple and worked fine.