iTunes backup problem

I wanted to backup all my iTunes songs so what I did was copy the iTunes folder with all my songs onto an external HDD. I have 1594 songs in my iTunes. Just to test my backup, I install iTunes on my brother's laptop and selected "Add Folder to Library..." in iTunes. However, only 1584 songs were added. I don't know which 10 songs are missing (would take too long to check). I know all my songs were backed up onto the HDD because the size of the backup is the same size as the iTunes folder I copied to the HDD.

What's wrong? What should I do?

 

Anyone have any ideas for this problem?

 

Is it possible you added another folder to Itunes that isn't in that folder you backed up? There's an option in preferences to copy files to Itunes media folder when adding to library.

 

I consolidated my library before backing up which means all my songs were in that iTunes folder that I copied to the external HDD.

 

Anyone else?

 

Is it possible you deleted a few song files before the backup, and iTunes didn't know about it? So it may still count them as being in the library... but when you copy the library, they aren't imported because the file is missing.

In Vista, you can try this:
In Explorer, go to your top-level music folder.
Organize > Folder and Search Options > Search tab > Check "Use natural language search" > OK
In the search box (near the upper-right of the Explorer window), type:

*.mp3 or *.m4a or *.m4p​

and press Enter.
In the blue "status pane" at the bottom of the window, it should say how many files it found with those extensions.


Or, alternatively:
Press the Windows key > type "cmd" > Press Enter
cd [music directory]
dir /s *.mp3 *.m4a *.m4p

At the bottom of the printout, it should show a count of the total number of files found.

The number of files should be the same either way.

 

if music has been moved or deleted itunes will lose its filepath and thus the exclamation mark comes up next to them and itunes can no longer find them unless you tell it where they are, it still counts them as songs in the library.

perhaps you moved or deleted some songs outside of itunes another time and itunes never noticed but when you copied them across it did not copy the missing songs