[X4U] restore itunes preserving metadata

[riteme here]

hi. i deleted all the songs in my itunes library. really really stupid. my
music is kept on a buffalo linkstation nas. it is backed up to an attached
usb drive.

the last incremental backup never completed so i was going to wipe the usb
drive and just let it do a full backup again from scratch. except i wiped
the buffalo linkstation.

so. the backup on the usb drive is not complete. 50 gigs out of 125.

i have other partial backups that will probably bring back 80-90% of the
library. i also have the library file and xml file from ten days ago.

my question is how to do this so i can retain the metadata?

to make this hopefully clear i have

1. dvds burned - but only up until may
2. the usb drive that was backing up the linkstation (newer music)
3. 60 gig ipod (random files)
4. an old 60 gig drive that has everything up until 2007
5. the library and library xml files from 10 days ago
6. 600 CDs but i don't want to rip those again and i assume that would not
keep all the data.

how should i go about putting this all back on the buffalo linkstation? is
it even possible to keep the original dates added, pla counts info?

and in a related question - the linkstation is 320 gigs - 4 -5 years old.
it's been solid, a little slow at times, but it's worked. i now have an
airport extreme. would i be better off using a usb drive airdisk to store
and serve my music?

and i need a more bullet-proof backup strategy.

thanks for any help. eric
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