theblueraja Posted October 4, 2007 Report Share Posted October 4, 2007 Please let me know if you think there is a way around this, but I just found out from Sony that even after the March kill-date of the CONNECT music service, there will STILL be a 5 PC limitation to your Sonic Stage library.Why is that an issue? Well, I'm the kind of person who re-formats his hard drive and reinstalls Windows at least every 6 months, and each time I do, I lose a count against the 5 PC-max rule. The way I've been getting around this issue thus far has been I make a call to Connect Service and they RESET my account by removing all of my "existing computers". That's nice, but I'm sure as of March 2008, I won't be able to call them anymore.In case you don't realize what is at stake here, let me explain:I barely EVER download music from CONNECT... I'm not worried about losing those downloads, which you can burn to CD anyway. What I'm worried about is how my entire library of 3,000 CDs suddenly becomes unusable as I lose the "licence" for all of that music suddenly!! What this means is I'll have to RE-IMPORT ALL of my CDs manually, REDO the artwork, etc., regardless if I did a Sonic Stage backup or not of my music.The tech person said you can't install Sonic Stage on an external drive and expect to run it... it has to be installed to the windows root directory.Hmmm... that just made me think. Could I possibly install WinXP to an external drive and then install sonic stage on it?? But then, whenever I want to use Sonic Stage I would have to exit my main computer and then start another Windows?? grrrr... this is so confusing.Anyway, I'm open to any ideas. Please don't tell me to rip my CDs to some lossless format to an external drive because not only would that be an insane amount of space, it would still lose all the info/data I manually change in Sonic Stage, plus the album art that I sometimes manually have to enter.I'm assuming the independent off-line version of Sonic Stage will still have the same issues...Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strungup Posted October 4, 2007 Report Share Posted October 4, 2007 Please let me know if you think there is a way around this, but I just found out from Sony that even after the March kill-date of the CONNECT music service, there will STILL be a 5 PC limitation to your Sonic Stage library.Why is that an issue? Well, I'm the kind of person who re-formats his hard drive and reinstalls Windows at least every 6 months, and each time I do, I lose a count against the 5 PC-max rule. The way I've been getting around this issue thus far has been I make a call to Connect Service and they RESET my account by removing all of my "existing computers". That's nice, but I'm sure as of March 2008, I won't be able to call them anymore.In case you don't realize what is at stake here, let me explain:I barely EVER download music from CONNECT... I'm not worried about losing those downloads, which you can burn to CD anyway. What I'm worried about is how my entire library of 3,000 CDs suddenly becomes unusable as I lose the "licence" for all of that music suddenly!! What this means is I'll have to RE-IMPORT ALL of my CDs manually, REDO the artwork, etc., regardless if I did a Sonic Stage backup or not of my music.The tech person said you can't install Sonic Stage on an external drive and expect to run it... it has to be installed to the windows root directory.Hmmm... that just made me think. Could I possibly install WinXP to an external drive and then install sonic stage on it?? But then, whenever I want to use Sonic Stage I would have to exit my main computer and then start another Windows?? grrrr... this is so confusing.Anyway, I'm open to any ideas. Please don't tell me to rip my CDs to some lossless format to an external drive because not only would that be an insane amount of space, it would still lose all the info/data I manually change in Sonic Stage, plus the album art that I sometimes manually have to enter.I'm assuming the independent off-line version of Sonic Stage will still have the same issues...ThanksRaj , this is gonna hurt ..... Get a Mac , and Get Parrallels , and a REALLY big external drive (Terrabyte) Install WinXP in Parrallels on the External drive and then Install Sonic Stage to that WinXP system , Block that XP from the internet from within Parrallels , ( The Parrallels will be on the Mac , the XP on the external) then put all the music you want to on it , and just keep the XP sys clean , dont put anything else in it . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblueraja Posted October 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 5, 2007 (edited) Raj , this is gonna hurt ..... Get a Mac , and Get Parrallels , and a REALLY big external drive (Terrabyte) Install WinXP in Parrallels on the External drive and then Install Sonic Stage to that WinXP system , Block that XP from the internet from within Parrallels , ( The Parrallels will be on the Mac , the XP on the external) then put all the music you want to on it , and just keep the XP sys clean , dont put anything else in it .Sorry, bud, you lost me when you said "Get a Mac." Not happening. But thanks for the idea and effort. If I had the money to do that I would just buy a laptop to be an exclusive Sonic Stage machine Edited October 5, 2007 by theblueraja Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raintheory Posted October 5, 2007 Report Share Posted October 5, 2007 Alternately, you could just setup a virtual machine on an external drive through windows... Microsoft's Virtual PC 2007 is free now I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblueraja Posted October 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 5, 2007 Alternately, you could just setup a virtual machine on an external drive through windows... Microsoft's Virtual PC 2007 is free now I think.Interesting... never heard of that. I may check that out. You know, the unfortunate thing is the very thing I'm trying to do (simply RETAIN my music library I PAID FOR) seems to be the very thing they wish to prevent due to piracy issues, etc... which may be why even the virtual PC idea may not work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tekdroid Posted October 5, 2007 Report Share Posted October 5, 2007 Why is that an issue? Well, I'm the kind of person who re-formats his hard drive and reinstalls Windows at least every 6 months, and each time I do, I lose a count against the 5 PC-max rule. The way I've been getting around this issue thus far has been I make a call to Connect Service and they RESET my account by removing all of my "existing computers". That's nice, but I'm sure as of March 2008, I won't be able to call them anymore.Use a drive imaging program. Image your drive after a fresh re-install with all your apps. Restore image as needed. Keep any changed docs and things on a separate partition, so that when you restore a virgin image, they aren't gone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strungup Posted October 5, 2007 Report Share Posted October 5, 2007 Use a drive imaging program. Image your drive after a fresh re-install with all your apps. Restore image as needed. Keep any changed docs and things on a separate partition, so that when you restore a virgin image, they aren't gone.now That is a good idea Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblueraja Posted October 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 5, 2007 Use a drive imaging program. Image your drive after a fresh re-install with all your apps. Restore image as needed. Keep any changed docs and things on a separate partition, so that when you restore a virgin image, they aren't gone.Hmmm... very interesting. I have a 500GB MyBook that I think has such a capability. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strungup Posted October 5, 2007 Report Share Posted October 5, 2007 HAHAHAHA ,.... he said "MyBook" instead of iBook , ..... sorry Mac humor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobt Posted October 5, 2007 Report Share Posted October 5, 2007 Just a question theblueraja, why format and install if it ain't broken, seems like a waste of time and energy to me. If you're going that route, why not run two hard drives and use the second as your storage drive?Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblueraja Posted October 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 5, 2007 Just a question theblueraja, why format and install if it ain't broken, seems like a waste of time and energy to me. If you're going that route, why not run two hard drives and use the second as your storage drive?BobHeh, I knew this question would come up.Basically I format for a few reasons, the main two being when I get hit by a VIRUS (I have a very basic antivirus program because I still refuse to pay a yearly fee for that just out of principle), and after I've installed a lot of things that I then removed.. it kind of cleans out the system, if that makes any sense.I have two other drives, one internal that I use to STORE everything, and one external for even more storage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1kyle Posted October 5, 2007 Report Share Posted October 5, 2007 Please let me know if you think there is a way around this, but I just found out from Sony that even after the March kill-date of the CONNECT music service, there will STILL be a 5 PC limitation to your Sonic Stage library.For Non DRM'ed music --Never buy it anyway --why pay through the nose for "compressed" inferior quality music (by inferior quality I mean the quality of the sound recording --not the merits or otherwise of the particular songs --everbody has thier own taste in music) you can restore your library TO AS MANY COMPUTERS AS YOU LIKE. You need to 1) backup the music library using the Backup tool.2) Connect to the Internet3) Restore your Library. Note that restoring the library will DELETE ANY PRE-EXISTING LIBRARY ON THE TARGET HARD DISK.I've actually got a USB disc library which I can just plug in to any computer done this way. Note if you do want a "Shared Library"on a USB disk you need to ensure the volume ID is the same on all the computers you share the library on i.e if it's VOL F on computer A it also needs to be volume F on Computer B.If you SHARE a library don't upload any songs to it as these will only be recognized on the computer you uploaded the songs from ( Yo can re-build the libray again via backup and restore).I tend to have a working library on one computer and every so often back it up and restore to my "shared" USB disk.This method doesn't work of course for "DRM'ed" music.If you "re-install" Windows every so often you can actually copy the music Backup file to an archive disk -- use something like GHOSDT, Acronis backup (http://www.acronis.com) . After you've re-installed Windows restore your library backup and then run the SONIC STAGE RESTORE.Cheers-K Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblueraja Posted October 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 5, 2007 For Non DRM'ed music --Never buy it anyway --why pay through the nose for "compressed" inferior quality music (by inferior quality I mean the quality of the sound recording --not the merits or otherwise of the particular songs --everbody has thier own taste in music) you can restore your library TO AS MANY COMPUTERS AS YOU LIKE. You need to 1) backup the music library using the Backup tool.2) Connect to the Internet3) Restore your Library. Note that restoring the library will DELETE ANY PRE-EXISTING LIBRARY ON THE TARGET HARD DISK.I've actually got a USB disc library which I can just plug in to any computer done this way. Note if you do want a "Shared Library"on a USB disk you need to ensure the volume ID is the same on all the computers you share the library on i.e if it's VOL F on computer A it also needs to be volume F on Computer B.If you SHARE a library don't upload any songs to it as these will only be recognized on the computer you uploaded the songs from ( Yo can re-build the libray again via backup and restore).I tend to have a working library on one computer and every so often back it up and restore to my "shared" USB disk.This method doesn't work of course for "DRM'ed" music.If you "re-install" Windows every so often you can actually copy the music Backup file to an archive disk -- use something like GHOSDT, Acronis backup (http://www.acronis.com) . After you've re-installed Windows restore your library backup and then run the SONIC STAGE RESTORE.Cheers-KYou may have something with the GHOSDT idea, but your 1,2,3 instructions are exactly WHAT I DID, and still my "non-DRM'd" library cannot be played even though I did the library backup-then-restore procedure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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