<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 13px; ">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. <br><br>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. <br><br>so. the backup on the usb drive is not complete. 50 gigs out of 125. <br><br>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. <br><br>my question is how to do this so i can retain the metadata? <br><br>to make this hopefully clear i have <br><br>1. dvds burned - but only up until may<br>2. the usb drive that was backing up the linkstation (newer music)<br>3. 60 gig ipod (random files)<br>4. an old 60 gig drive that has everything up until 2007<br>5. the library and library xml files from 10 days ago <br>6. 600 CDs but i don't want to rip those again and i assume that would not keep all the data.<br><br>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? <br><br>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? <br><br>and i need a more bullet-proof backup strategy. <br><br>thanks for any help. eric</span></body></html>