iTunes won't let me move files to new hard drive

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iTunes won't let me move files to new hard drive

Hey, all...I'm having a really major problem with my computer. I'm trying to move my iTunes library to a new hard drive. Currently, it's in a 1-terabyte Western Digital USB drive powered through the USB, and I'm trying to move it to a Seagate 1-terabyte drive. I currently have 535 gigabytes of media in my library and I have a MacBook with a 250-GB hard drive that I don't store any music on currently.

I move the library file over to the new USB hard drive, and I consolidate my library as it asks me to do. Then, when I go down to "Organize library", it prepares to copy the files to the new disk, then gives me the big red stop sign and tells me "The disk cannot be read from or written to." and that's that. The files work fine when I try to play them, so they're there, and presumably, not irretrievably damaged. They're just impossible to move.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.5)

Posted on Mar 17, 2011 3:31 AM

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Answer 1

Jolly Giant

Level 7

25,464 points

Mar 17, 2011 3:57 AM in response to coolhand70

coolhand70 wrote:
"The disk cannot be read from or written to."

my guess is that the WD is NTFS formatted. if that is so, you will need to either re-format it for Mac or install e.g the _*NTFS 3G*_ driver.

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Answer 2

coolhand70 Author

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Mar 17, 2011 4:03 AM in response to Jolly Giant

Nope. Just checked. It's MacOS Extended (Journaled), as is the Seagate

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Answer 3

Jolly Giant

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Mar 17, 2011 4:44 AM in response to coolhand70

check if you have read & write permissions for your music folder. in finder, right-click on it and +get info+. unlock the little padlock (you may have to enter your admin password) and change the permission settings. next, click on the little gear-shaped icon and +apply to enclosed items+ like so

you may also give everyone read & write access.

*the important part is to apply to enclosed items* !

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Answer 4

coolhand70 Author

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Mar 17, 2011 4:57 AM in response to Jolly Giant

I had access. I gave it to everyone just in case. It's putting those permissions on there now.

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Answer 5

coolhand70 Author

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Mar 17, 2011 5:54 AM in response to coolhand70

Sadly, it's still doing the same thing...

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Answer 6

Jolly Giant

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Mar 17, 2011 6:58 AM in response to coolhand70

another thing to do is this:

in finder, +get info+ on the destination drive. there should be a little box next to +ignore ownership on this volume+. put a tick in that box and try again.

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Answer 7

coolhand70 Author

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Mar 17, 2011 7:06 AM in response to Jolly Giant

Already ticked that box. Same problem.

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Answer 8

Jolly Giant

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Mar 17, 2011 8:56 AM in response to coolhand70

i'm sorry but i'm out of options then.

hopefully another user will pitch in with a possible solution.

good luck !

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Answer 9

turingtest2

Level 10

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Mar 17, 2011 9:27 AM in response to coolhand70

Try http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=movefilesfold to move files in batches of say 100-1000 instead of all in one hit. One thing to worry about though is the health of the target drive. Perhaps there is some point in the original warning.

tt2

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Answer 10

Chris CA

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Mar 17, 2011 9:42 AM in response to coolhand70

I move the library file over to the new USB hard drive, and I consolidate my library as it asks me to do.

Where did you see this?

Try this...
Quit iTunes.
Drag the entire /Music/iTunes/ to the external.
Hold Option and launch iTunes.
Select *Choose library* and select the iTunes folder you copied to the external.
No need to consolidate or change any settings.

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Answer 11

turingtest2

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Mar 17, 2011 12:32 PM in response to turingtest2

I was actually thinking of http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=relocateselected earlier though it looks as if they do much the same job. Chris' point is well made however, you should just be able to copy the whole library from one location to the other and then hold down Option when starting iTunes to connect to the new copy.

tt2

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Answer 12

coolhand70 Author

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Mar 19, 2011 6:18 PM in response to turingtest2

Hey, folks, just thought I'd give an update: I tried to drag the whole iTunes media file from the current external drive to the new one, and no dice. It told me that there were files that it couldn't copy and stopped copying cold...Then I tried using the new drive as a Time Machine drive in hopes that I could back up my files in case of trouble. It backed up everything on my internal drive, then when I tried to back up my external, it gave me an error message in about 2 minutes. What it means to me is that there are some bad files here, but in a library of more than 90,000 songs, finding them could prove problematic (and disk utility is telling me that all is well on the old external). What IS clear is that I can't back up or move my library right now, which has me somewhat concerned. My fear is that I'll have to move files manually and start over with a new iTunes library.

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Answer 13

sue lyn

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Jun 15, 2012 12:41 PM in response to coolhand70

A reply to an old problem, but I couldn't find this solution anywhere. I had the same problem when I moved my iTunes library to an external drive. As Apple recommends, I used File > Library > Organize Library > Consolidate Files to copy my music files from my overstuffed hard drive to the external drive. Copying went fine for a while, adding about two-thirds of my files to the new drive without incident. Then I got the big stop sign with the error message: "Copying files failed. The disk could not be read from or written to."

This turned out to have nothing to do with either the hard drive or the external disk. I had a bad file in my music library that was shutting down the consolidation process. Unfortunately the error message says nothing about which file may be the culprit. All I could think to do was to go back to my original library in iTunes and sort by Artist, select all cuts with artists beginning with A, right click and select "Consolidate Files". Then do the same with B artists, etc. Proceeding this way, files resumed copying but when I got to the "S" selections, the consolidate process failed again. Then I selected smaller and smaller batches until the problem file was identified. Removed it from my library and then Consolidate worked fine through the rest of the library. Problem solved.

I spent several days working through this; hope I can save someone else the time.

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Answer 14

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Jun 15, 2012 1:44 PM in response to sue lyn

sue lyn wrote:

A reply to an old problem, but I couldn't find this solution anywhere. I had the same problem when I moved my iTunes library to an external drive. As Apple recommends, I used File > Library > Organize Library > Consolidate Files to copy my music files from my overstuffed hard drive to the external drive.
FYI: THis moves teh iTunes media to a different location, not the iTunes library,.
To move the iTuens library, simply copy /Music/itunes/ folder to

FYI: This moves the iTunes media to a different location, not the iTunes library.

To move the iTunes library (it's much simpler to do this)...

Quit iTunes.
Move the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder to teh external.
Hold Option and launch iTunes.
select Choose library... and select the iTunes folder you moved to the external.

That is all you need to do.

Everything is contained in the iTunes folder.

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Answer 15

sue lyn

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Jun 15, 2012 3:24 PM in response to Chris CA

Yes, you're right, of course, it moves the Media folder, not the Library. In moving the media folder rather than the library I was following the Apple Support advice to move the media rather than the database itself. Would you have recommended moving the whole iTunes folder to the external drive?

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