Retrieving music and pictures

[besserglik]

Recently I downgraded from Yosemite to Mavericks in a vain attempt to solve a wifi connectivity problem. I was then informed that to retrieve data the that I had stored on an external hard drive and migrated to the Mavericks system, I needed to return to Yosemite, which I duly did. The data migration was accomplished satisfactorily on each occasion. However I find that the photos (iPhotos) and music (iTunes) I had stored on the original system are no longer immediately accessible. I'm sure that they were fully transferred to the external hard drive (a WD My Passport with 1 ter of storage space) and therefore must exist somewhere in the restored Yosemite system. Can anyone tell me how to restore them to the Photos and iTunes applications? Thanks.

 

[honestone]

How did you originally store the information on the external hard drive? If you just did a "drag and Drop", not sure why it would be OS-dependent? But, if you used Time Machine, that could explain it.

Can you double click the folder on the external drive where the information was stored? If you can, can you see the folders containing the photos and music?

Unfortunately, I do not use Time Machine for my backups. Maybe another individual can help you with that.

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

… are no longer immediately accessible.

Not sure what you mean there … can you see an iPhoto Library icon in the Pictures folder on the ext drive?

If you opened your Library in Yosemite the Library *may* have been upgraded meaning a previous version of iPhoto *might* not be able to open it but need more precise info re: your issue …

Did you use Migration Assistant in the upgrade/downgrade?

 

[besserglik]

How did you originally store the information on the external hard drive? If you just did a "drag and Drop", not sure why it would be OS-dependent? But, if you used Time Machine, that could explain it.

Can you double click the folder on the external drive where the information was stored? If you can, can you see the folders containing the photos and music?

Unfortunately, I do not use Time Machine for my backups. Maybe another individual can help you with that.

I just used the Migration Assistant and followed the instructions as they came up. I think I was offered to use either or both of the MA and Time Machine and chose to use both.

Yes, if I click the folder on the external drive I get all the folders contained on the Macintosh HD. A lot of them are marked down as Aliases, but there are also folders marked Library and System. The Library folder contains a large number of folders with titles ranging from Application Support and Audio through to Webserver and Widgets. I would assume that the folders containing the photos and music are contained in there somewhere, but I've no idea where exactly and what I'd do with them once I've identified and located them.

 

[besserglik]

Not sure what you mean there … can you see an iPhoto Library icon in the Pictures folder on the ext drive?

If you opened your Library in Yosemite the Library *may* have been upgraded meaning a previous version of iPhoto *might* not be able to open it but need more precise info re: your issue …

Did you use Migration Assistant in the upgrade/downgrade?

What I mean is that if I simply click on the Photo and iTunes icons in the dock, the applications open but have no content.

Perhaps the Photo and iTunes folders that I require are contained somewhere in the Yosemite Library, but as I've indicated to honestone, I've no idea how to locate them and would not know what to do with them if I did.

Incidentally, I note that the Firefox, Skype and Burn applications are no longer to be found in the dock. Does this mean they have to be downloaded afresh, with - in the case of Skype - the loss of data regarding previous calls and contacts?

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Have a look in MacintoshHD ~> Users … there might be another folder besides your User Folder in there which might hold your music & photos.

You will then likely need to import them to iPhoto/iTunes.