I downloaded music off of my external hard drive but none of it will play on iTunes. The name shows up but when I click on it says the original file cannot be found. The music does play on my Microsoft media player though. Is there anything I can do?
iOS 6
The "original file could not be found" thing happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, or that the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout,or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
(Moving your files by hand from one hard drive to another will have definitely confused iTunes.)
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to get info, then cancel when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions.
(However in this case I'm assuming the files are where you want them, so you need to fix iTunes.)
Alternatively, as long as you can find a location holding the missing files, then you can try double-clicking a missing track, opting to locate it and accept iTunes' offer to locate your other missing songs based on the same location. If that doesn't work then my FindTracks script should be able to reconnect the tracks to iTunes.
See also Getting iTunes & Windows Media Player to play nicely.
tt2
That sounds as though you haven't imported the files correctly.
iTunes is simply a database of your music. The music is not in iTunes, it remembers where you said it was. So perhaps what you have done when you imported is to tell iTunes that the music files were on the external drive. If that external drive is no longer connected to your computer, or its drive letter is now different to before, then iTunes will not be able to find the songs. Hence, "original file could not be found".
You need to either have that drive connected and ready to go before you start iTunes, or you need to put a copy of the files onto your computer and then tell iTunes that the songs are in that location.
If WMP still lays the songs, then perhaps WMP has copied the somgs onto your compter, whileiTunes is still looking for the external drive.
boome wrote:
Try setting iTunes as your default music player also. You can do this from the Control
Panel.
That's unlikey to solve the OP's problem if the songs are not on the computer in the first place.
the fiend wrote:
If WMP still lays the songs, then perhaps WMP has copied the somgs onto your compter, whileiTunes is still looking for the external drive.
Wow! What went wrong there?
If WMP still plays the songs, then perhaps WMP has copied the songs onto your computer, while iTunes is still looking for the external drive.
*Ah!* That's better!
Try setting iTunes as your default music player also. You can do this from the Control
Panel.
music plays in windows media player but not in itunes
