Help, please...I really messed things up

[Harborgirl]

I've accidentally deleted everything in my Calibre library. I was doing a back up to Dropbox (which seems to have worked, each book has 3 files in a folder) but then I deleted something that emptied my Calibre library. My books are on my iPad, in iTunes and in Dropbox. How can I move them back to my Calibre library?

[Dopedangel]

Originally Posted by Harborgirl

I've accidentally deleted everything in my Calibre library. I was doing a back up to Dropbox (which seems to have worked, each book has 3 files in a folder) but then I deleted something that emptied my Calibre library. My books are on my iPad, in iTunes and in Dropbox. How can I move them back to my Calibre library?

I think you have just moved your whole library to dropbox.
Try the switch library option and point it to the library in your dropbox folder
it should load your Library

[Harborgirl]

Thank you. I just tried that. Got this error message:

ERROR: ERROR: Unhandled exception: <b>DatabaseException</b>:disk I/O error
RemoteTraceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages/calibre/library/sqlite.py", line 196, in run
OperationalError: disk I/O error

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/wizard/__init__.py", line 503, in check
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/wizard/__init__.py", line 522, in __call__
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/ui.py", line 396, in library_moved
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/library/views.py", line 410, in set_database
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/library/views.py", line 280, in save_state
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/library/views.py", line 274, in write_state
File "site-packages/calibre/library/prefs.py", line 51, in set
File "site-packages/calibre/library/prefs.py", line 44, in __setitem__
File "site-packages/calibre/library/sqlite.py", line 232, in run
DatabaseException: disk I/O error
RemoteTraceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages/calibre/library/sqlite.py", line 196, in run
OperationalError: disk I/O error

[Dopedangel]

sorry I can't help more than that
I think a more advanced user should be able to help out.

[Harborgirl]

Thank you for trying!

[bookworm01]

@Harborgirl, I did something similiar yesterday. I have a Macbook and accidentally deleted my entire library and it's sitting in my recycle bin. I have no clue how to restore them back to my library. Hopefully whomever answers you will be able to answer me too

[Harborgirl]

Thanks, bookworm01.
This is very bad, very sad.
Hope we both get some help.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Bookworm, I don't know squat about Macs but in Windoze, I can right click on a file or folder in the recycle bin and the menu that pops up will give me an option to restore the file. Surely Mac has something similar. If not, mayhap you can drag it from the bin to the desktop then drag it from there back to where it belongs.

[chaley]

@harborgirl: if your library is indeed on dropbox, then we can probably get it back. However, you need to provide some more information.

1) When you go to your library folder on dropbox, in addition to folders with authors' names, do you see a file called metadata.db?
2) What three files are stored with each book? In particular, is one of them 'metadata.opf'?
3) What were you trying to accomplish when all this happened?
4) Is your hard disk full?

[Harborgirl]

I have rebuilt my library buy downloading a new version of Calibre and adding my Dropbox files, one at time, into the new Calibre. My old version of Calibre (both were 0.7.37) would not allow me to add files from Dropbox - maybe because i had deleted the metadata.db file. So, although I have solved my problem, I'll answer your questions because you were kind to offer your help...

@chaley:
1) Yes. It's back now after my recontruction. My problems began when I deleted this metadata.db file from Dropbox. I don't know why I did that.
2) Yes.
3) I was just fritzing around. It sounded like a good idea to back up my Calibre library because I couldn't find it when I looked in Time Machine and I read on a blog about backing up to Dropbox.
4) Hard disk is not full.

Thank you. I appreciate your offer of help.

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by Harborgirl

@chaley:
1) Yes. It's back now after my recontruction. My problems began when I deleted this metadata.db file from Dropbox. I don't know why I did that.

Just a point - Dropbox provides the ability to restore a deleted file (I think for up to 30 days or something like that). You might want to look at how that works in case a similar accident happens in future.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by bookworm01

@Harborgirl, I did something similiar yesterday. I have a Macbook and accidentally deleted my entire library and it's sitting in my recycle bin. I have no clue how to restore them back to my library. Hopefully whomever answers you will be able to answer me too

If it's still sitting there in the trash, you can just drag-and-drop it right back to where you want it to live. Or you can open the trash and either control-click (hold down the control key while you click the mouse button) or right-click the main library file and then choose "put back" from the contextual menu. That makes the finder put the files back where they were before you deleted by mistake.