Q: New PC, Same Hard Drive, Same Media Library: iTunes Not Recognizing It
I recently built a new Windows (10) PC. However, the new PC incorporates the hard drive from a previous PC to hold various media files, including my iTunes library (I've never let iTunes store the library in its default location on the C: drive).
iTunes worked fine on my previous computer. However, when I set up iTunes on the new PC, I noticed two things:
Every song I've purchased over the years, even though it exists as a file in my existing media library, shows up with a "download from the Cloud" icon. It's as if iTunes refuses to recognize that the file is already present on the hard drive (which, again, is exactly the same hard drive, with the same path to the media library, as was working fine on the previous PC).
iTunes does not display any of the songs that I've ripped from my CD collection over the years. These files, too, are still present in the media library, under "Unknown Artists/Unknown Albums". They were visible on the previous PC.
I am really stumped by this. How do I tell iTunes that nothing needs to be downloaded, and to display my own content?
As an experiment, I downloaded a few songs from the cloud. The cloud icon went away, but I ended up with two files in my media library (e.g., ARandomSong and ARandomSong1).
- Mark
Windows 10
Posted on Sep 21, 2016 6:59 PM

