[pbauer]

I'm trying to work my way out of a migration mess.

My PC showed signs of imminent failure, so I made backups and got a new one. I exported my Calibre library (which has LOTS of books) to a backup disk. I imported that to Data storage (HDD) drive on my new PC--success. I deleted the backup file from the back up drive.

Then I realised I wanted it to be on the SSD drive for faster access. The SSD drive is 1TB and contains my programs as well as frequently-used folders and files. The HDD is also 1 TB but will be more of an archive location.

In the course of moving the library (actually 1 main library and 3 specialty libraries for travel etc) from the HDD to the SSD the "main" library lost it's metadata. So everything I had added over 10 years--corrected pub dates, genres, series/order, tags, reading ratings and notes, covers--was missing. AARGH.

I was reconciling myself to having to readd that info over time (some of it anyway)--and then decided to see if the deleted backup was recoverable from the external drive. It was there, in a hidden recycle file. I got software called Remo Recover and recovered the whoe set of folders including their metadata.

BUT--when I Added the folder (using Add, folders and subfolders) to the Calibre library on my SSD, about 1/4 of the metadata got dropped. So 3/4 of the books have all the previous metadata but the others only show what was originally downloaded in the epub or mobi.

The phenomenon affected mostly books with authors later in the alphabet--most until M's loaded properly and many (not all) after M had no metadata. I've tried doing a fresh recovery/add on a smaller set as a test, and the metadata gets recovered but doesn't show up on the Calibre Add dialogue box or flow through to the added book.

Any ideas? I'm grateful to have 3/4 of it but would love to get the rest. I have attachments that illustrate the dropped metadata--the epub format also got dropped