Need help combining databases

[tonysjungle]

I basically have my original lump of songs on my external hard drive as backup and have that original lump of songs on my main and backup laptops. I also one set of new songs on my main laptop and a set of new songs on my backup laptop and I'm wanting to have all songs combined and available on both laptops as well as the backup.

Lemme explain:

I run two shows a week and have always used the same laptop computer. When I first started, I decided to back up all of my work onto an external hard drive. I did this by simply copying the folder of kma's from my main laptop into an identical folder on my external hard drive.

Fortunately, I haven't had any reason to need the external hard drive.

I continued, for several months, to import cd's weekly (or however often I purchased them) into my laptop. There are probably 30-40 cd's worth on my main laptop that I did not backup into the external hard drive.

About 2 months ago, my power adapter for my main laptop got smashed when a drunk customer knocked into my table and it crashed onto the ground. Fortunately, there was enough battery left to finish my show that night.

The next night, I started using my "backup" laptop which had only my original songs (and not the several months of new imports). No biggie, since I still had most of my songs available.

Here's the problem. I didn't quickly get a new adapter for my main laptop and just kept using my backup laptop. As I kept buying karaoke cd's every week or so, I started importing them into my backup laptop. There are about 20-30 cd's worth of songs that have been imported into that laptop.

I have since bought a cord for my main laptop and I'm wanting to use that one again. I'm NOT wanting to re-import every single "new" cd again, if I don't have to.

How do I combine the "newer" songs from both laptops without having duplicates or messing up databases or kma id numbers? I tried searching through the forum and the manual and couldn't figure it out.

I basically have my original lump of songs on my external hard drive as backup and have that original lump of songs on my main and backup laptops. I also one set of new songs on my main laptop and a set of new songs on my backup laptop and I'm wanting to have all songs combined and available on both laptops as well as the backup.

[billyo]

let me see if i understood what you're saying, so basically you wanted to have all your songs on your main and back-up laptop and have all those songs in an ext. drive for back-up, i think just rebuilt( merge ) your songdata base . and then copy all of them to your ext. drive.

[tonysjungle]

If I do the merge, does it put the songs (kma's) in one folder or does it keep them in their separate folders and just create one database? I'm hoping (but not necessary) to have all the kma's in one folder and am hoping to not have duplicates.

When I started adding CDs to the laptops separately, it was assigning the same kma# to the different songs. For example, on laptop A, if I imported a cd, it might assign kma1 to "the dance" and then on laptop B if I imported a cd it would assign kma1 to "wonderwall".

Hopefully that makes sense. Worried that two files that are different songs with the same name won't be merged incorrectly and cause one to be lost etc...or mess up the database

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by tonysjungle

If I do the merge, does it put the songs (kma's) in one folder or does it keep them in their separate folders and just create one database? I'm hoping (but not necessary) to have all the kma's in one folder and am hoping to not have duplicates.

When I started adding CDs to the laptops separately, it was assigning the same kma# to the different songs. For example, on laptop A, if I imported a cd, it might assign kma1 to "the dance" and then on laptop B if I imported a cd it would assign kma1 to "wonderwall".

Hopefully that makes sense. Worried that two files that are different songs with the same name won't be merged incorrectly and cause one to be lost etc...or mess up the database

Hoster does not move files. You have to do that by moving or copying them through Windows Explorer. You will also have to copy the songs from each computer that are different to the primary. I would recommend you get one single location such as the primary computer.
Then in Hoster under the Rebuild Click on the Add instead of Rebuild. Make sure all folders (or single folder if you have moved the files to one) is listed so it will know where to find the files. Then click Add. What this will do is add anything new that has duplicate bookids changing there bookids to new ones.
After you have done that, delete all the files on the backup external and copy all the files to your backup drive from the primary. After deleting all the files from the backup computer, then from the backup you can copy all the files to your backup computer. On the second computer all you need to do in Hoster is a regular rebuild.

In the future I would keep track of what the last BookID was you used to import and when importing a new CD make sure you set the BookID to a number not the same as what you have already used. You do not have to use the "Next" BookID and can enter your own number.