My external drive which was the home of my iTunes library crashed a few weeks ago and NO, I didn’t have it backed up. I need to get a Drobo, but the first order of business was to see if iTunes would allow me to retrieve any of my past purchases.

I sent an e-mail to tech support and after a few days they sent back a reply stating that they would make an exception and allow me to download my files on a one-time basis.

Michael, iTunes Store Customer Support will let you download (at no charge) all the titles you purchased on this account that are still available. This does not include any item that has been modified or removed from the store since you purchased it. Please note that you may download your purchases only once, so this is an exception.

So I’ve begun the process of re-downloading what is still available to me as you can see in the image below.

A screenshot of my iTunes software downloading 1812 items
A screenshot of my iTunes software downloading 1812 items.

I’m extremely grateful that iTunes support made this exception and allowed me access to 1812 files, but it’s also a little disconcerting. There were an additional 637 that were modified in some way so that they are no longer available to me. What disturbs me is not the fact that there are 637 items that I lost, but that my total iTunes files equals 2449. In other words, I’ve spent over $2000 in the iTunes store.

Of course that’s not including the 900+ CDs I have, so I’m beginning to think that I might have a problem. 😛