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Why would itunes strip data from .wav files? 3 Qs:

Friends,

Turns out I did not lose metadata, only data. But I am having a meta-bummer ("a bummer about bummers") as a consequence.

Three months ago, I began to store itunes music from a large CD collection on an outboard 500 GB WD hard drive. Lots of good advice here at Audiogon re: how to hi fi a computer system. Audiogon posts, along with some generous consults from veterans, led me to buy a second hard drive (also a WD, but bigger at one TB), along with a Squeezebox, and an Ipod.

I have been slowly ripping CDs to itunes, and had about 3,000 songs as .wav files. I plan to convert them to ALC in a Smart Playlist once my Ipod gets full.

When I copied HD#1 contents to HD#2, both hard drives dropped artist, album, genre, composer and showed lots of "can't find the path" exclamation points (!).

With help from several Audiogon users I have successfully recovered my .wav files and reduced !s. (delete Library, Import Folder from HD#1 titles 'itunes music'). But everything appears as a song name only.

QUESTION #1: CAN I FIND THE MISSING DATA? IS THERE A SEARCHABLE FILE EXTENSION? OR DID THEY SIMPLY DISAPPEAR?

QUESTION #2: THERE SEEMS TO BE NO ALTERNATIVE TO RE-RIPPING HUNDREDS OF CDS BY PHYSICALLY PLACING THEM IN MY PC'S CD DRIVE. (NO ONE DESCRIBES A PROCESS OF SIMPLY SENDING CD DIGITIAL OUT TO LAPTOP AS A PCM STREAM.) IF I HAVE TO GO THROUGH THAT LIVING HECK AGAIN, HOW DO I AVOID A RECURRENCE OF THE DATA LOSS DURING BACKUP?

QUESTION 3: Apparently because I use an external HD, I have to disable error-correction when ripping in itunes. I am not too computer facile (this may already be apparent), but as long as I am taking the time, I would like to invest a few more minutes and use error correction in itunes. (I am not ready for EAC yet.) Can it be done?

Thanks to all of you who posted and emailed.

Cheer,
Rick_van
rick_van

Showing 2 responses by herman

herman
2,215 posts
 
iTunes did not "strip" the data. It was never part of the song file. The other stuff was stored elsewhere and the link to that data is gone. It now shows as a song name only because that is all that the wav file contains.

It was a bad idea to use a program like iTunes to store wav files since it was designed to store data as mp3 or Apple lossless. You can avoid a re-occurence by using the program as intended and use Apple Lossless. You can always create a wav from Apple Lossless if you feel the need to do so.

Apparently because I use an external HD, I have to disable error-correction when ripping in itunes.
Why? I have ripped a lot of CDs to external drives with error corerction on.
herman
2,215 posts
 
Yes it is indirectly. The artwork is not attached to the wav files. It is stored elsewhere and there is a link to the song file. It the "elsewhere" gets corrupted or the link is broken or corrupted iTunes will never be able to find it.

Apple lossless will store the data concerning that song as part of the file as tags so it won't get lost. It stores this info about wav files elswhere so it can get lost.

BTW the artist's name is not metadata. Metadata is data about other data. Artist names, album titles, song titles, genre, etc. is just data.

Metadata would be things like playlists, play count, your ranking of albums, etc.
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