Big problem with song files disappearing!

striktlybzniz, that sounds like the classic situation of windows nicely changing the external hard drive's letter without telling you.


For example, one day the exHD is F: and itunes is working great.
Then you plug in a digital camera SD card. Windows decides to give F: to the SD card and now the exHD with all the music has G: assigned to it.
Only problem is, you now open itunes and itunes is looking for the music files on F: but all that's there now is some photo files.



You can stop windows from reassigning USB drive letters by deciding them yourself using Windows Disk Management:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844



On my setup, I have drive K: assigned to my music exHD and drive N: for my nano. I purposely chose something further down in the alphabet than the usual suspects E: F: G: that windows loves to mess with.

I'm not sure Apple thinks it's a bug...a lot of programs don't work properly if files are moved around, and that's how itunes was designed: to expect a file to always be in the same place. If it went looking willy-nilly over all possible hard drives for matches, it could cause Bad Things to happen, depending on certain setups. On the other hand, it would be nice if it could find stuff that was moved.


Anyway, it's a moot point.


OK, if you want to know what path itunes is looking for the files in, you'll have to close ituens down and have a look at its library companion file.
iTunes Library.XML
The default path on XP is here
C:\Documents and Settings\ username \My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music Library.xml



Open it in WordPad. Not MS Word! It is XML, but not really frightening. About the 10th line down, you'll see something like
key>Music Folder</key><string> file://localhost/K:/iTunes%20Music/</string>


On my system it's K:, do you see that in the line I posted?



You need to reassign the drive letter in Windows to whatever drive letter your XML file is showing.
Close down the XML file, reassign the drive letter, then launch itunes. Everything should be found.

No don't reassign your exHD letter just yet!


I think what has happened (instead of windows reassigning the drive letter), perhaps itunes was opened once when the exHD wasn't connected. That made itunes default back to the C:/.../Dave... folder.


Have you ever copied the ITL library file to the exHD and done a shift=start of itunes? I am trying to figure out your setup. In particular, if there might be an ITL file anywhere on your system that is still pointing to the exHD, not C:

striktlybzniz wrote:
So apparently, iTunes is looking for songs on my C: drive! If I do the re-assign through Windows Disk Manager, will any problems be caused?? I don't want any ill-effects to happen to the hard drive itself! Yikes.

First thing to remember about all this (which Katrina has mentioned, but I'll expand upon); if you open up iTunes before the external drive is ready, iTunes will not be able to find the drive (since it's not ready for use) and therefore iTunes will change where it looks for music back to the C:drive.

So even if you "turn on" the external drive _and then_ "start" iTunes, if iTunes looks for the files before the drive is ready, hey presto - it can't find them so goes back to the C:drive. So one thing you must do, is make sure the external drive is "ready" before opening up iTunes.

Ah, if only that was the only issue. Katrina also mentioned the drive letter changing. It's not a bug, it is simply how Windows works; you plug in an external device and Windows assigns the first available letter (after B you'll notice), and it has nothing to do with which USB port you plug it into. Occasionally, I've experienced Windows assigning a later letter than previously - maybe that's a bug or maybe I did not realise something else was already connected (such as the card reader I connect to my desktop PC, which has a different drive letter allocated to each "card-slot" for each type of card it can read!)... but, suppose you assign a fixed letter to that external drive. One day, eventually, you'll have so many different devices, all assigned with their own letter, that you'll run out of single character letters. Can Windows handle two-letter drives I wonder?

A second thing to do before starting iTunes (in addition to making sure the external drive is ready), is make sure it has the drive letter you need and if it doesn't, change it then.

At the risk of complicating this further, my laptop has a card reader built into it, which gets a drive letter allocated to it every time I turn on computer, even if there is nothing plugged into it. Although I haven't tried testing it to breaking point, I suppose it's possible that if I start the attached external drive too early, it may be allocated the drive letter previously used by the card reader! Food for thought.

Phil

Message was edited by: the fiend

+pretty much against my choice because whenever I download a song from the p2p file sharing program I use, as soon as the song lands on my C: hard drive, iTunes loads automatically and adds the song to the library.+


That p2p sharing program must be doing this, because folks have been asking for an itunes "watch" folder for years. Just like when I DL a song from Amazon, I have it set to auto-add the tracks itunes. Or not. itunes isn't doing it - the amazon downloader is.

Can someone help me, a person who is a neophyte with all computer technology and terms.
Everytime I play a song,I will scroll up through my iTunes library, ⚠'s are spreading like a cancer. This just started the other day. I will listen to a song, and then all of a sudden it has an exclaim. pt. next to it and it can not be found again. This only is happening with songs that I have purchased and are on my C drive.
Not songs I have directly sent to iTunes (like my CD's).
If you could be as specific and use terms that I can understand. I appreciate your reply.
Michael

striktlybzniz wrote:
... when it comes to assigning or changing drive letters in Windows and I get to the step that says "Click Assign the following drive letter if it is not already selected," this option isn't even selectable!

Do you need to type something in for that option to become selectable? That is, is there a blank field waiting for you to enter the drive letter you want, and _only once you've typed it in_ does the option become selectable, so long as your choice of letter is not already in use.

Now, I want to say that my external HD has always showed up as drive E:, so I can't confirm if the letter changes when some other external media is plugged in.

Yes you can, in Windows go to *Start/My Computer* and see which letter has been assigned to the drive.

In iTunes, if a song is shown as not found (exclamation point) you can't then see where iTunes is looking. However, if you then manage to get iTunes to find everything (by re-importing again if necessary, as you've already had to do), make a note of which drive the library is on. Check a few songs to make sure they're all the same. Highlight a song and click *File/Get Info* and on the song's Summary tab it will show Where, which is the full file path and filename. The drive letter is the very first thing. Then when you look in *Start/My Computer* the drive letter for the external drive will be the same - it must be. On a subsequent occasion, if the library isn't found, check again in *Start/My Computer* to see if the drive letter is the same as the previous occasion. If it has changed, is there something else which has now got the drive letter used before?

I also need to make sure that if changing the drive letter becomes the fix here, it doesn't screw with my hard drive path too much because I also DJ and all of my tracks are organized in Serato Scratch Live. If I change the drive letter, I worry about all of the songs not showing up properly in Serato, which would be another headache.

Well, that's why I suggest you use *Start/My Computer* to see which drive letter your external drive is given. You can also then see what else is being given a drive letter at any time. It's only once you do this that you will be able to confirm that both iTunes and the Serato are looking in the same place, and if they are not, you'll have to go through some pain of organising things until they do.

If I could only store all of my songs on my C: drive and call it a day.

I feel for you...

Phil

mickeyitaliano wrote:
Everytime I play a song,I will scroll up through my iTunes library, ⚠'s are spreading like a cancer. ... This only is happening with songs that I have purchased and are on my C drive.
Not songs I have directly sent to iTunes (like my CD's).

So where are the purchased songs stored? Presumably not in the same place as the rest of your library. The usual place for the iTunes library is in C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\...

Are the purchased songs somewhere else and if so, where? Are they still in the same place when you next turn on your PC? (I'm simply wondering if tyou have actually downloaded them onto your computer or whether you have managed to link them to your library without downloading them. In other words, they are still stored online somewhere. No, I don't quite know how this could happen, but I'm still asking.)

Phil
P.S. It's not a good idea to have your email id in you signature (at the bottom of each of your posts). You will end up with a lot of email you do not want!

striktlybzniz wrote:
OK, so I did some more checking and trying things out and here's three things I discovered:
1. Indeed, if I have my printer, flash drive, iPod, or external hard drive plugged in one at a time, they are all assigned the E: drive extension!

Which is precisely what I would expect- no bug there then.

So, sure enough, Windows is just picking that letter for each device, and if I plug in two things, it'll just go down the alphabet list (E:, then F:, etc.). However, when I plugged in my iPod FIRST, it got assigned the E: drive, and then I plugged in my external hard drive SECOND, and it got assigned the F: drive.

Again, precisely what I would expect.

Then, I loaded up iTunes and wallah, most of my tracks were found successfully with my hard drive holding the F: extension. I'm not sure if this evidence can help someone solve my dilemna, but does it mean that the external needs to be drive F: at all times?

No, it means that you've found the cause of your problem, which is that the drive letter is not always the same, but it does need to be! It needs to be whichever letter iTunes thinks the files are located. So if iTunes thinks the external drive is F, then use F but if it thinks it is E, then you must you E.

2. Because my p2p file sharing program was set to "import downloaded files into iTunes", there were many times in the past when iTunes would load up without my external hard drive being plugged in.

Ah - now I think we've found something! In a previous post, you said that after the download was put onto the C:drive, iTunes (rather than the p2p programme) would then automatically import the song, the question is - how? Is iTunes simply saying the song is on C, or do you have (or did you have) iTunes set to organise your library, which (I'm sure Katrina will correct me if I'm wrong) will _move or copy_ the original file into iTunes's own folders. In this situation, if the external drive is usually E (for instance) but iTunes re-locates the song when the external drive is F, then once again, that song will be lost when you force the drive to be E. So yet another reason why songs get lost.

Just as a side note (but not sure if this bit of info is helpful at all), under "Preferences-Advanced" in iTunes, my iTunes media folder location is set to "E:".

Well I think it is - helpful, that is. I believe that you need to make sure that the external drive is always letter E (but see my note below), because that's iTunes preference and if it doesn't find it, hey presto, confusion and songs lost! In addition, on that Advanced tab, the option to *Copy files to iTunes media folder* can be on only if the drive letter for your library _is always_ the same letter. Or turn that option off and manually move the files you've downloaded. It's that combination of a changing drive letter and the "copy files to a path that changes" that causes songs to get lost.

So, Katrina or fiend, what is my final solution here?

Decide which drive letter has the most songs allocated to it. Remember, you've told us that sometimes it has been E, other times it's been F. That drive letter (with the most songs) is the one to use - every time. *Note re above;* If iTunes currently knows where almost everything is, use that current drive letter as your default location. If it's Q (for example) then that's what you need to use. This will cause the least amount of work in locating the files that are lost. Once you have a consistent location for the iTunes library, make sure it is allocated to that drive before starting iTunes or downloading songs.

Phil

1.That's how windows works - it assigns the first open drive letter UNLESS you assign a drive letter for that device when it's plugged into a USB port.



2. The p2 program was launching itunes and since itunes could not find F: it reverted to C:


3. Yes, assign F: to the exHD since your item #1 said most tracks were found while the exHD was F:
Also change the itunes preference to use F:, not E:. If itunes can't find most tracks when it's E: there is no point in still using that drive letter.