Help Merging Old Drives

[swanksalot]

I have a shiny new 500 gig firewire drive, and would like to figure out the smartest way to merge the contents of several old partitions (from System 9.1 days, if not longer) onto the new drive. There is data, which is pretty self-explanatory, but there is also many gigs of MP3 files, linked to an iTunes library. Ideally, I would retain all of the iTunes play-count data, ratings, etc., which means I cannot just move the mp3 files (a portion of a larger library). If I just move the files, iTunes will treat the mp3 files as new additions.

I was thinking if I used SuperDuper to smart update each partition on a like-named partition on my new drive, and subsequently renamed the new drive partitions to exactly match what the old drive partition names were, I could fool iTunes into thinking the drive hadn't changed. (Sorry for the fuzzy writing, long day).

In other words, use SuperDuper to clone all info on a partition called "Chios" to a new partition called "Chios2". After completion, eject "Chios" and rename "Chios2" to "Chios". Am I deluded? Is there a better method than this (which isn't hard, just a bit long winded, and which may not work). There are 5 partitions (average of 15-20 gigs each) in total that need to be moved.

Thanks!

[dnanian]

Have you considered pointing iTunes at the place you want to store the files (set the library to there) and then telling it to "Consolidate Library"?

[swanksalot]

Didn't know about the Consolidate command. Might try it now.

My long-winded plan worked, by the way, so all the data got moved off of the old decaying disks and is now on the new disk. Changing the name (stripping off the added character) worked to fool the system/iTunes.