Transfer win. Media player music help needed (1 Viewer)

[The Dotties]

I have a large (15GB) of music stored on my windows 10 enabled Acer Aspire laptop in Windows media player.

I really do need to transfer it for safety's sake to one, or both, of Samsung HX 1tg or Hitachi 1tb. external hard drives. I cannot replicate the stored music if I lose it as the original music has been lost.
I'm a typical case of all the toys but no idea how to use it..

If you are really feeling generous and show people how clever you are, I would like to transfer this music into a Samsung Galaxy Egde 7. I have a 64 GB card in the phone so plenty of memory available.

When I have become a world leading expert on windows, if somebody wants to show me how to transfer to iPod classic I could become an expert on that one as well!

Thanks, Geoff

 

[Gellyneck]

For the Hitachi 1Tb hard drive (assume external) just plug one end of an appropriate usb cable into it and the other into a usb socket on Acer laptop. In Windows Explorer just copy the files from current location to external hard drive. They'll probably be .wmv files if they are Windows Media.
For the Galaxy Edge 7, remove the 64Gb card and either plug it directly into an sd card slot on the laptop if it has one or invest in an appropriate usb sd card reader (a couple of quid) and plug that into usb socket on laptop. Then copy as previous but to the sd card. You'll need to check the Galaxy will play .wmv files though. If not, you'll need to convert them to an acceptable format.

 

[Vanman]

If you are really lucky your laptop will recognise the Phones card/drive when you link the two by USB cable and you can just use explorer to copy them over.

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[The Dotties]

Thank you both!
It was the windows explorer that was tripping me up. I was trying to load media player directly to the hard drive.
I will try this and come if I have any more probs.

 

[TerryL]

After fitting a new all-singing-all-dancing radio I wanted to try it out using a USB stick. I opened Windows Media Player, with the stick plugged in, and it offered to "Sync" to the stick. All I did was create a playlist then pressed "Sync" - few minutes later (depends on how big the playlist is) job done and it worked beautifully in the radio too.

If you don't like messing with Explorer, it's a easy alternative.

 

[The Dotties]

I've I've just tried to sync everything on the pc to the external hard in the way that you mentioned @TerryL .
After it finished laughing at me it told me, in computerese, to sod orf.
So I'm no further forward
@Gellyneck . Could you recommend a book that would help to explain in reeeeally easy language to a computer numpty please
Geoff.

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[Vanman]

It might help if you could post pictures of the error messages that you are getting ...

In the meantime perhaps I can help steer you towards your goal with some background info. Your opening post says your music files are 'in Windows Media player' (WMP). The better way of looking at it is that your music files are in Folders and you choose to play them with WMP. They will just be free standing files, probably in either .wmv .mp3 or .flac file format. To ensure they are backed up you just need to find them on your laptop using explorer and then copy/paste them onto a network or USB drive or writeable DVD drive big enough to take 15Gb.

Using WMP to try and copy brings in other complications because it prefers to copy playlists rather than the actual music files and of course the playlists won't work when they are not connected to the laptop. A playlist is just a list of tracks and their locations, not the tracks themselves. You can experiment with BURN rather than sync too. Sync only works in limited scenarios. If you make your entire collection a playlist and then try to burn that you may have more luck.

Hope this helps you towards a solution or at least better understanding of the problem.

 

[TerryL]

I've I've just tried to sync everything on the pc to the external hard in the way that you mentioned @TerryL .
After it finished laughing at me it told me, in computerese, to sod orf.
So I'm no further forward/QUOTE]

Just checked - apparently WMP won't sync to a connected hard drive, sorry for mis-info. You'll need to do it via Explorer then.

First ensure your external hard drive is connected to your laptop/PC with a USB cable. Then open two copies of Explorer - click on the little file icon, should be on the tool bar at the bottom. (For the second copy hold the shift key first). Then drag the windows around (click and hold on the heading of the box) until you can see both on your screen. In one window go to the external hard drive - click on "This Computer" and it will show you what drives are connected, double click on the one you want to copy to. Now create a new folder (there's a button in the heading to do this), and name it something like Backup Music and open it (double click) it'll be empty of course.
Now go to the other Explorer window and find the file where your music is currently stored. Click on the filename and, holding the left button down, drag the mouse pointer to the new file you've just made and let go (i.e. drop) the pointer inside the file area. You should now see a box pop-up showing the progress of the copying taking place - it will take a short while depending on the size of the file. If you are at all unsure of this practice with some other unimportant file first.
Note, this copies your music across, leaving the original where it is. Don't be tempted to use the cut-and-paste method; it'll work but if anything goes wrong you could lose your files.

Hope this helps and I'm not trying to teach my grannie to suck eggs !

 

[TerryL]

Oops, messed that quote up. Repost to make it clearer.

Just checked - apparently WMP won't sync to a connected hard drive, sorry for mis-info. You'll need to do it via Explorer then. Use following to backup your music files.

First ensure your external hard drive is connected to your laptop/PC with a USB cable. Then open two copies of Explorer - click on the little file icon, should be on the tool bar at the bottom. (For the second copy hold the shift key first). Then drag the windows around (click and hold on the heading of the box) until you can see both on your screen. In one window go to the external hard drive - click on "This Computer" and it will show you what drives are connected, double click on the one you want to copy to. Now create a new folder (there's a button in the heading to do this), and name it something like Backup Music and open it (double click) it'll be empty of course.
Now go to the other Explorer window and find the file where your music is currently stored. Click on the filename and, holding the left button down, drag the mouse pointer to the new file you've just made and let go (i.e. drop) the pointer inside the file area. You should now see a box pop-up showing the progress of the copying taking place - it will take a short while depending on the size of the file. If you are at all unsure of this practice with some other unimportant file first.
Note, this copies your music across, leaving the original where it is. Don't be tempted to use the cut-and-paste method; it'll work but if anything goes wrong you could lose your files.

Hope this helps and I'm not trying to teach my grannie to suck eggs !

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[Vanman]

Just checked my post and I did say Copy and Paste. Not Cut which does carry the risk of losing them.

 

[TerryL]

Sorry @Vanman, wasn't crticising - you posted while I was writing.

 

[Gellyneck]

I've I've just tried to sync everything on the pc to the external hard in the way that you mentioned @TerryL .
After it finished laughing at me it told me, in computerese, to sod orf.
So I'm no further forward
@Gellyneck . Could you recommend a book that would help to explain in reeeeally easy language to a computer numpty please
Geoff.

Hi Geoff
@Vanman and @TerryL have covered off the process for you and hopefully you're sorted.
If you're still struggling shout back and we'll get you fixed.
Out of curiosity what version of Windows are you using?

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[Vanman]

Sorry @Vanman, wasn't crticising - you posted while I was writing.

No problem, technical things I try and write properly - spur of the moment things can come out less well. I was really just agreeing with you and for my own peace of mind checking that I hadn't used the wrong C word

 

[The Dotties]

Great. Thanks for all your help, really appreciated.
I will try again later today using @TerryL advice. The message I get is "unable to sync" but I will try again, knowing me I've missed an important step.
@Gellyneck the windows version is 10, which is the free update from 7

 

[The Dotties]

Hey, stop faffing about and get on with backing up you're songs!
Apologies oh wise one
I have tried @TerryL advice, but I cannot find the WMF as a standalone file. I have opened the music file as if I wanted to play the tracks and am transferring the albums one at a time through a 'sync' tab on the extreme right of the page. It's going to be slow but APPEARS to be working.
I will let you what happens.


Posted on here as well got make sure @Gellyneck

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[Gellyneck]

Hey, stop faffing about and get on with backing up you're songs!
Apologies oh wise one
I have tried @TerryL advice, but I cannot find the WMF as a standalone file. I have opened the music file as if I wanted to play the tracks and am transferring the albums one at a time through a 'sync' tab on the extreme right of the page. It's going to be slow but APPEARS to be working.
I will let you what happens.


Posted on here as well got make sure @Gellyneck

In Windows Explorer have a look in "Music" as that's the default location for, eh, music files.

 

[The Dotties]

I cannot find windows explorer. I get a message stating that explorer has changed on W10 to FILE explorer.
It is in this I cannot find the media files I need.
If I select 'music' in file explorer it goes straight to an iTunes file which does not have anything like the full collection on it.

 

[The Dotties]

Some of the albums I am copying over have copied twice. On one copy it says mp3 and on the other states m4a.
Will this make any difference to future use of the music, or will whatever I'm copying to know the difference automatically?

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[The Dotties]

@Gellyneck, @TerryL, @Vanman
I have finished copying all the albums over to the samsung HD. It appears to have worked, although the music is scattered throughout all the other files going in alphabetical order.
I could not create a separate file as per TerryL's suggestion as i could only copy through the media player screen and this does not give me an option.
Anyhoo, I've got my music backed up, so thanks to you all for your invaluable help.
Geoff

 

[Gellyneck]

Some of the albums I am copying over have copied twice. On one copy it says mp3 and on the other states m4a.
Will this make any difference to future use of the music, or will whatever I'm copying to know the difference automatically?

m4a and mp3 are both compressed audio file formats. m4a tend to be, normally, of a slightly better quality. The m4a files will probably be from iTunes.

 

[2657]

I wouldn't touch itunes or any other apple product with a bargepole........they want to control the world!..........even more than microsoft

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[TerryL]

Some of the albums I am copying over have copied twice. On one copy it says mp3 and on the other states m4a.
Will this make any difference to future use of the music, or will whatever I'm copying to know the difference automatically?

No, it shouldn't make any difference and at least you've now got your music backed up. But you shouldn't have needed to go anywhere near WMP (Windows Media Player).

Can't help feeling you've missed something somewhere, think perhaps you could do with a primer on the Windows file system. Do you have a savvy acquaintance (or maybe a 10-year old neighbour!) who could give you a hand? There is a book "Windows for Dummies" which could prove helpful; might get it at a charity shop or a good stationers.

 

[The Dotties]

@TerryL
Must admit it was painful! I'm aware there must be a better way of doing this sort of excercise, but I'm worried Windows for Dummies may be too highbrow

I will buy a copy tomorrow and try and understand windows better, if nothing else I can get files in order and even use the laptop for the reason I bought it.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll let you know how I get on with it.
Geoff