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my external hard drive with all my iTunes music on, has crashed i can no longer access it, i had 50,000 songs on it, is there a way of retrieving the songs through iTunes? because although i can't locate them because the hard drive is broken, there are still listed in my library?
I like to reinstall them on a new hard drive if possible
iMac Line (2012 and Later)
Howdy allanpar,
It’s great to have you in the Apple Support Communities! I gather that you're attempting to recover those lost songs after your external hard drive crashed. I'm happy to provide some guidance.
Before the external hard drive crashed, did you have the individuals files backed up in another location on another drive? If not, that music may be lost. You can consider iTunes library as a catalog, letting you know where files are located and providing you with the quick shortcut to play them.
If those were songs that you had purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Store, you may be able to re-download them using the steps here: Redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books
This article will help you with backing up your iTunes library to avoid this issue in the future: Back up and restore your iTunes library on your PC
Wishing you the best!
Howdy allanpar,
It’s great to have you in the Apple Support Communities! I gather that you're attempting to recover those lost songs after your external hard drive crashed. I'm happy to provide some guidance.
Before the external hard drive crashed, did you have the individuals files backed up in another location on another drive? If not, that music may be lost. You can consider iTunes library as a catalog, letting you know where files are located and providing you with the quick shortcut to play them.
If those were songs that you had purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Store, you may be able to re-download them using the steps here: Redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books
This article will help you with backing up your iTunes library to avoid this issue in the future: Back up and restore your iTunes library on your PC
Wishing you the best!
See if anything in Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device - Apple Community helps. Depending on the way in which your external drive has crashed it may be possible to reclaim data from it with recovery software.
tt2
Please see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device - Apple Community. Consolidating cannot copy in content that cannot be located. Syncing your devices when the content is missing can result in further loss of media. Work slowly and carefully to retrieve what can be extracted from your devices.
tt2
Thanks for the response, I have an iMac with a 500gb hard drive in it, which had some of the music on it, (possibly a third of the total), however when the hard drive was getting nearly full, I plugged in a external 2TB hard drive, so most of the music I’d copied to that, over a 8 year period, along with a about 20,000 photos I’d taken. All the music was in my iTunes library, so I was hoping iTunes would know it was there so I might be able to access it another way, actually that’s made me think I’m wondering if it was backed up to iCloud too? I’ll have to check on that.
i have been thinking for a while now about backing it up on another hard drive but looks like I might have left it too late.
Thanks for your response I do have an iPod and an iPad Pro along with a iPhone X some of the music was copied onto them but with having so much music on the hard drive I only put a small selection on my devices, I have just realised though I might have backed up everything to iCloud so I’ll have too take a look. Thanks again Alkan
allanpar Said:
"external hard drive crashed with my music on, help needed: my external hard drive with all my iTunes music on, has crashed i can no longer access it, i had 50,000 songs on it, is there a way of retrieving the songs through iTunes? because although i can't locate them because the hard drive is broken, there are still listed in my library? I like to reinstall them on a new hard drive if possible"
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Data Recovery Services:
Contact a retailer, and see what they offer for data recovery services. They may have such a service.
Hi I’ve just checked on my iPad I have 1495 songs saved in my music library on that, also a few thousand on my iPod so with the songs on them and my iPhone also on the iMac hard drive, I’ve probably lost just over half of the music, may be a little bit more. However that’s better than. Loosing all of it, so I’ll take your advice and consolidate the library. Regards Allan
soccerchamp42 was trying to get in touch with me. I've asked the mods to remove your email address. It is unwise to post personal information on public forums. It scan attract spam or scams.
tt2
Is it possible to contact you through any channels? Had a question about your iTunes script. Thank you!
Thank you, I only realised that the message was meant for you after posting my reply, :)
external hard drive crashed with my music on, help needed
