Q: Where did all my music go?  When the new I tunes installed my music vanished???  Help

Did you recently update iTunes?

This Apple doc might help ya out -> No content shows up in iTunes after updating

I have lost 12000 songs that after ripping all my CD library over many years! My whole library was on an external rugged military spec hard disk, so I did not back it up. Apple guys, I am very sorry to say but your incompetence is striking. I really do not understand how Apple developers can roll out such an update that destroys many poeple's music libraries and not even react. I have moved totally from Windows to Mac however after a long series of big skrew ups, I am seriously considering moving back to Windows/Blackberry and anything far away from Apple. Good job Apple, 12000 songs just went down the drain, now I will simply resort to torrents to download at least part of my library that you trashed. I will surely not go through ripping every single CD one more time!

Just how the f can a software update erase an external hard drive? You must live in the twilight zone.

Hey Bella, how's Edward? It didn't erase the whole external drive genius, it simply and only erased the songs

I don't buy it. It may have erased the library, (the reference to the songs) but you've got some f'ed up system problems if a software update on another HD can remotely erase files on an external.

Man o man, you caught me! You are right not to buy it, in fact I am Bill Gates and I am posting this to increase the sales of MSFT!

Dude, go ahead and check other postings, many have lost all their songs following the update. A USB connected external HD is no different from the Mac's hard drive. The stupid update erased songs in many users' Macs as it did with mine, whether you buy it or not.

In any case, thanks for the stimulating discussion, but I would appreciate constructive suggestions by someone knowledgeable and who can advise on what went wrong and how to avoid this, so other users are welcome to post suggestions.

Constructive suggeation #1 to prevent this in the future.

BACK Up to a drive THAT YOU CAN AND DO REMOVE.

I had a Western Digital external 750Gb HD that seized up and took 97,000 songs amd 24,000 audiobooks with it. The best suggestion I got (from WD no less) was to PAY a minimum of $1500 to "try and recover" (no guarantee, but pay first for them to try)  the data from an HD that seized up through poor manufacturing. Imagine that... A company makes a  product and when it fails, they want SIX times the purchase price to repair it.
Fortunately, I ALWAYS keep at least TWO external HDs available. One I keep connected all the time. The other I write backups to, of things I can't afford to replace (or lose), and then I pull it and set it back in the desk until I need it again.

That may seem like a lot of trouble, but compare it to re-ripping 16,500+ CDs and redownloading a few thousand songs. And THEN having to reorganize all that.

<Edited by Host>