restore metadata?

[Terisia]

Hi everyone

My library completely disappeared between last night and this afternoon - talk about shock. Calibre showed up like it had just been installed, a clean slate. My library had 7 virtual libraries, lots of tags, all gone now. Is there any hope for a restore of these?

I just reloaded all my books into Calibre - 776 of them, all of which had complete metadata. Unfortunately, the metadata didn't return with the books.

I can see the opf files, but I don't know how to load them - oh my goodness, please don't say I have to go through all that work again!

Thankful for any help ....
Terisia

[kovidgoyal]

http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq....n-app-is-blank

[Terisia]

Thanks so much for your quick response!

I did successfully restore the metadata, according to Calibre, but it is certainly bare-bones. Any way to restore columns? Data I had entered?

Could you point me to a post that lists exactly what I should expect from this type of restore?

Your assistance is so much appreciated.
Terisia

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Terisia

Thanks so much for your quick response!

I did successfully restore the metadata, according to Calibre, but it is certainly bare-bones. Any way to restore columns? Data I had entered?

Could you point me to a post that lists exactly what I should expect from this type of restore?

Your assistance is so much appreciated.
Terisia

What you get back from a restore depends on what calibre has to work with. If:

• the metadata.opf files are still in your library, one per book folder
• the file metadata_db_prefs_backup.json is on the root folder of your library, and
• the files are up-to-date (calibre's auto-backup had finished)

then the restore is total -- all metadata and library-based preferences such as VLs.

If there are no metadata.opf files then the data recovered by restore will be very limited.

If there is no metadata_db_prefs_backup.json file then custom column definitions might be wrong and none of the library-specific preferences will be restored.

Have you looked for your old library? You can tell that a folder is a valid calibre library if it contains the files metadata.db and metadata_db_prefs_backup.json, along with a mess of folders named for authors.

[Terisia]

Time to start fresh for me - there are several things I want to do differently now that I've read more on this forum. This is how I learn, every time I get a really nice program - do it once to learn and then again to fix and make it mine. :-)

I know what happened to my library. (Of course it was my fault, knew that from the beginning. I'm an organizer and like to move things around, then really screwed it up when trying to put things back. lol) and thanks to your help, this time through will be much better.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Terisia

Time to start fresh for me - there are several things I want to do differently now that I've read more on this forum. This is how I learn, every time I get a really nice program - do it once to learn and then again to fix and make it mine. :-)

I know what happened to my library. (Of course it was my fault, knew that from the beginning. I'm an organizer and like to move things around, then really screwed it up when trying to put things back. lol) and thanks to your help, this time through will be much better.

If you use Calibre to rename an Author, it will move things around as needed.

Do read the FAQ and MR posts about messing around in the structure. Calibre delivers books to devices or EXTERNAL (to the Library) folders with the latest metadata inserted.