Cacher123
Level 1 (65 points)

Q: Mac won't access hard drive. Media is there.

All my media is located on an external hard drive. The location is G:/iTunes/iTunes music when accessed from my Dell PC. I now want to give my Mac Book (older one) access to my music and ditch the PC. When I connect the hard drive it comes up on the Mac labeled as "MyBook", which is what I named it. I open iTunes, hold down the option key till it says "Choose itunes library." So far, so good. I click Choose Library. However, when I navigate to the external drive under Devices, and locate the iTunes folder  I get an error message stating "The iTunes Libray.itl file is locked, on a locked disc, or you do not have write permission for this file."

 

 

Just for for the heck of it, I literally dragged all my music and movies to iTunes manually from the hard drive and dropped them into iTunes. They all reinstalled into iTunes and played fine but were placed onto the Mac's hard drive. Now my Mac's drive is basically entirely full. Also, none of the movies or media will let me make any changes to titles, sorting, etc. It's like the files are locked. Also, none of my PDFs, apps, or other stuff transferred.

 

 

I also tried doing the same thing from Preferences in iTunes. Went to preferences, Advanced and the "iTunes Media folder location" box says: /users/user/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media. I clicked "Change" and again navigated to My Book, iTunes.

Now in the location window it says: /Volumes/My Book/iTunes

I hit OK. It says updating iTunes library.

Then it comes up with "Would you like iTunes to move and rename the files....."

I've ve tried hitting both yes and no.

Nothing happens after this point. iTunes just stays blank with no media in it.

 

 

How do I get my Mac to access my media on the hard drive without having to load everything into the Macs internal drive the way it worked on my PC?

Latest version of iTunes.

2 TB hard drive.

Mac OS X. V 10.7.5

Posted on Aug 6, 2014 6:55 PM

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Q: Mac won't access hard drive. Media is there.

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Limnos,Helpful

    Limnos Limnos Aug 6, 2014 8:53 PM in response to Cacher123
    Level 9 (54,353 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 6, 2014 8:53 PM in response to Cacher123

    PC use NTFS formatted drives.  Macs can read but not write to NTFS.  iTunes needs to modify to the library file and it considers it locked because it cannot re-write to the NTFS drive.

     

    Don't touch preferences.  Those are not the problem and many people make the mistake thinking you tell iTunes where to find media by using preferences.  Preferences only tell iTunes where to put new media added from that point on.

     

    Back to the drive.  Options are:

     

    - Reformat the drive.  Mac format if only using with a Mac.  You can try MS-DOS/FAT if using with both a PC and a Mac.  Macs can read and write to that but depending upon the DOS version there are file size limits for very large files (4 GB for FAT32).

     

    - Buy third party software enabling Macs to use NTFS or PCs to use Mac format.

     

    Reformatting involves erasing the drive.  If you at all care about your collection you already have a backup drive to temporarily store things.

  • by Cacher123,

    Cacher123 Cacher123 Aug 6, 2014 9:11 PM in response to Limnos
    Level 1 (65 points)
    Aug 6, 2014 9:11 PM in response to Limnos

    OOk. That helps. Thanks .  At least I'm not crazy.

    I do have a backup of my media. It's simply a copy of the hard drive I'm trying to use. I was able to drag and drop all my songs and movies into iTunes from my hard drive. So iTunes can read and play off my current hard drive. It just can't save to it, correct?

     

    Anything I can do short of reformatting the drive?

     

    if not, how do I get the copy of my media which is on my backup drive back to the reformatted drive?

  • by Cacher123,

    Cacher123 Cacher123 Aug 7, 2014 8:20 AM in response to Cacher123
    Level 1 (65 points)
    Aug 7, 2014 8:20 AM in response to Cacher123

    Okay I did some experimenting today. I can drag all the music and movies from my hard drive to the new iTunes that's on my Mac. Once it's there the Mac places it into the iTunes user file which is on the hard drive which is on the Mac. The files that are on the Mac hard drive are readable and writable. Now what I'd like to do is take the files that are on the Mac hard drive and put them back on to the auxiliary external hard drive after I format the hard drive for the Mac. How do I do that?

    So what I need to do is move all my music and movies onto my Mac hard drive. Then I need to reformat my external hard drive for the Mac format. Then I need to get all the music back from the Mac onto my external hard drive. Is that correct?

    Because if I'm correct, when i then put all my music and movies back onto my external hard drive it will be in a format that the Mac can read and write to. Is that correct?

    Is there any way of getting the Mac to find the music on my external drive and upload it by itself through iTunes? Or do I have to drag each individual album and drop it into iTunes? Is that what the "Add folder" selection in iTunes is for?

  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Aug 7, 2014 11:18 AM in response to Cacher123
    Level 9 (54,353 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 7, 2014 11:18 AM in response to Cacher123

    Do you only have media on the external or is your whole iTunes library there?  A complete iTunes library is the  library files, supporting files and folders, and media files.  Media files are just media files.  Hint: Easiest is if it is the whole thing and portable.  It can be relocated when it is not together but it may involve a lot more steps with varying degrees of success.

     

    turingtest2 article: Make a split library portable - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7392

     

    What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660

     

    More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management

     

    What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html

     

    Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391

     

    iTunes 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847 - plus supplemental information about organizing to new structure https://discussions.apple.com/message/26404702#26404702

  • by Cacher123,

    Cacher123 Cacher123 Aug 7, 2014 7:00 PM in response to Limnos
    Level 1 (65 points)
    Aug 7, 2014 7:00 PM in response to Limnos

    EEntire iTunes is on the external. I followed instructions a long time ago when I created it since my laptop had a teeny memory and at that time I was thinking of the future. The only thing on the PC is iTunes itself. Everything including all the files, folders, and everything else is on the hard drive.

  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Aug 7, 2014 9:10 PM in response to Cacher123
    Level 9 (54,353 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 7, 2014 9:10 PM in response to Cacher123

    Good.  Drag it all to the Mac temporarily.  Reformat drive with Disk Utility, Mac extended.  Drag iTunes stuff back to external drive and start iTunes with option/alt key held down and guide it to the iTunes Libary.itl file on the external.