Hard Drive Died. Had to rebuild OS. Posters? Thumbnails?

Plex Media Server
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Server Version#:Newest
Player Version#:Newest

I’m looking for a way to get the thumbnails/posters back to my library without having to redo all x00 movies manually, 1 by 1.

My Hard drive died. I reloaded windows on a different hard drive on the same server. This is Windows 10, brand new install.

My movies were located on a totally different data drive. That drive was just fine.

I installed the OS, and Plex. How do I point plex to the right information so that it picks up where I left off?

To get super technical:
Movies on d:\ data drive
c:\ OS drive died
New hard drive, reinstalled Plex and Windows on new C:\ drive.
I’ve pointed the new Plex server to the data drive, and I have access to my movies.
How do I copy the other metadata that refers to the thumbnails, etc…?

Please let me know if that doesn’t make sense. Thank you for any input.

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You will need the old c:\ hard drive (or a backup). If it is not available or crashed hard and cannot be accessed, then the data is gone.

The Plex database, metadata, thumbnails, etc are stored in the Plex Media Server data directory, in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex Media Server.

You would need to copy the data from the old drive to the new drive.

See the “Move an Install…” document below for full details.

FYI, it is possible to move the Plex data directory to another location. See the How To document below.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/202915258-where-is-the-plex-media-server-data-directory-located/

https://support.plex.tv/articles/201370363-move-an-install-to-another-system/

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Thank you. I do have access to that data. I’ll refer to that document. Appreciate your help.

4

Thank you so much. That worked like a champ.

I logged out and stopped the plex server.
I copied the data from the old (bad/imminent failure) drive to the new one. (From the old c:\ to the new c:\ drive)
I started the plex server and logged in

Everything was there.

Note: I think the one thing I screwed up to start with, was that the drive letter for the data drive had changed. In my case, I was able to change it back to match. I suspect this is why I didn’t have to rescan the library for it to pick up the metadata and posters.

Thanks again!

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