Deleting entire music collection...

[Maniac]

Damn... meant to click 'delete folder' to remove one or two folders to make room for some new music I wanted to import...

So I clicked 'delete entire music collection' and as quick as a flash when it said 'are you sure' I just pressed 'yes'....

... Then said a few choice words, slapped myself awake and looked for cancel... There isn't one.

 

[sars]

hopefully you have a back up somewhere?

 

[MrPT]

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

 

[Maniac]

hopefully you have a back up somewhere?

Never took a backup from the iDrive as you need to go for a 5 hour drive its that slow... Oh well, back to iTunes and a memory stick to start cobbling a playlist together.... :|

Bugger my sillyness..

 

[MrPT]

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

See, this is the problem with me just reading "New posts" and not noticing which forum I am in! :? Ah well, if you ever make the same mistake on your PC, that's a great free app...

 

[ronk]

hopefully you have a back up somewhere?

Never took a backup from the iDrive as you need to go for a 5 hour drive its that slow... Oh well, back to iTunes and a memory stick to start cobbling a playlist together.... :|

Bugger my sillyness..

Is there an incremental backup facility rather than he full five hour jobbie?
I think I'll leave mine on a stick!

 

[MikeS]

Did the same thing a while back. Fortunately, a few weeks before I had been trying out a usb stick as well so never bothered to reload the drive as it takes so long. Just use the usb now which is much faster and holds a lot more music!

 

[Maniac]

Did the same thing a while back. Fortunately, a few weeks before I had been trying out a usb stick as well so never bothered to reload the drive as it takes so long. Just use the usb now which is much faster and holds a lot more music!

Thing is, I use voice control quite a bit, which only works on the music collection, also, I find the audio quality better from the HD storage than any input media. Anyhow, its all gone and I spent a joyous hour last night cobbling music back onto a USB stick and its imported around 25% on my journey to the office...

 

[Stuart Truman]

I'm amazed it takes so long to import. The iDrive has a fairly decent CPU in it and USB is a standard. I suppose it might be USB 1.0 but that wouldn't make financial sense.

My VW was equally slow and on top of that, when you updated the maps or firmware, it was bye bye music. I think the performance on that it was the old automotive grade hard disk. I'd have hoped that more modern systems would use NAND flash or an SSD these days

 

[pvr]

It takes me about 30 seconds per full CD to import in the X5, but that has a later system. Have not tried to import from USB though.

What is the load speed from CD - just to see if it is the USB interface only?

 

[Maniac]

Not sure on the load speed from CD but it doesn't take long to import the CD.. it does seem to take an age from USB considering its just copying files. Wouldn't surprise me if ripoff BMW used USB 1.0

 

[dr_john]

i use an old ipod plugged into the centre console USB port. when i copied files from itunes to a USB stick they wouldnt play the tracks in the right order, i guess i was doing something wrong.

using the ipod i also get the album artwork on the screen.

i did try copying files to the car hard drive initially, but it just took so long and alternatives were there so i gave up on it.

 

[Anonymous]

I use a USB stick under the arm rest. Just copy files from my iTunes and get artwork also.

Can't see why sound quality would suffer, it's all digital files! Shouldn't matter if you put them on USB or car hdd, same file. Only difference would be if you ripped directly from cd onto car, might import at higher quality than iTunes etc?

 

[dr_john]

I use a USB stick under the arm rest. Just copy files from my iTunes and get artwork also.

Can't see why sound quality would suffer, it's all digital files! Shouldn't matter if you put them on USB or car hdd, same file. Only difference would be if you ripped directly from cd onto car, might import at higher quality than iTunes etc?

what files do you copy from itunes to make this work? how did you make the copy, eg from some function within itunes? when i did this, i lost the track order info and the artwork, but then i just copied and pasted the music files without going through itunes so i suppose i was bound to lose information.

regarding sound quality, device access time may make a difference, i would expect hard drive access to be slower than a solid state USB stick.

thanks!

 

[Stuart Truman]

regarding sound quality, device access time may make a difference, i would expect hard drive access to be slower than a solid state USB stick.

thanks!

That depends upon the drive interface, rotation time and seek times vs the USB port version and speed of memory on the stick

Generally memory is always faster than a hard disk which is why SSD's are becoming more popular, but the interface will make the difference. SSDs are more rugged too, as no moving components. The design of the system will make a difference too, as it may be reading ahead to cache the song in memory. There are so many variables here its impossible to say without the system schematics. Personally, I'd buy a 256GB SSD (or largest that the system can cope with), put it in an external housing, mount it near the USB port and use that for music.

 

[Maniac]

I have a 120GB iPod classic connected to the USB/AUX ports in the car that carries most of my music collection. I use the cars own hard disk to carry stuff I listen to regularly. I think for me the audio quality is less on the iPod due to the fact its pre combox and uses the AUX in rather than sending via USB as the combox update allows. Not fussed, audio quality is acceptable, just, on the iPod, but is much clearer and well balanced from the hard disk, and as I mentioned, I like to search using voice control to save me scrolling through endlesss music lists.

 

[Anonymous]

I use a USB stick under the arm rest. Just copy files from my iTunes and get artwork also.

Can't see why sound quality would suffer, it's all digital files! Shouldn't matter if you put them on USB or car hdd, same file. Only difference would be if you ripped directly from cd onto car, might import at higher quality than iTunes etc?

what files do you copy from itunes to make this work? how did you make the copy, eg from some function within itunes? when i did this, i lost the track order info and the artwork, but then i just copied and pasted the music files without going through itunes so i suppose i was bound to lose information.

regarding sound quality, device access time may make a difference, i would expect hard drive access to be slower than a solid state USB stick.

thanks!

You could go into your itunes music folder and copy the sub folders, which would keep things in folders.

I created a playlist in itunes, then highlighted everything in it and dragged to a folder on the desktop, then copied that to the memory stick. All the files are in 1 folder, so not very neat when viewing it on a computer, but the car will read the info in the files and organise into albums etc. I also get the cover art.

The only files I copied are the .aac files (i think thats right) or perhap .mp4?

Didnt do any "export" process etc.

 

[Anonymous]

I have a 120GB iPod classic connected to the USB/AUX ports in the car that carries most of my music collection. I use the cars own hard disk to carry stuff I listen to regularly. I think for me the audio quality is less on the iPod due to the fact its pre combox and uses the AUX in rather than sending via USB as the combox update allows. Not fussed, audio quality is acceptable, just, on the iPod, but is much clearer and well balanced from the hard disk, and as I mentioned, I like to search using voice control to save me scrolling through endlesss music lists.

Ah, so the difference comes from the different connection methods, i.e. one being digital and the other analogue?

Never tried the voice control for music, could be useful.