Can't Load Music From External Hard Drive

I have a similar problem. I am trying to use my old iTunes library stored on an external hard drive on iTunes on my new Windows laptop. My songs are located in Seagate: iTunes (Original): iTunes Music subfolder on my external hard drive. There is no Media subfolder. See screen shot:

When I click on the iTunes Music subfolder in Seagate: iTunes (Original): iTunes Music on my external hard drive, all my songs appear and I am able to play them on my Windows laptop.

However, when I choose Seagate: iTunes (Original): iTunes Music as the iTunes Library to use when I open iTunes on my Windows laptop, all of the folders to albums appear but when I click on any albums or songs, I get an error message that the item cannot be located.

How can I access the songs in Seagate: Itunes (Original): iTunes Music running iTunes on my Windows laptop.

Thanks.

Under Edit > Preference > Advanced what is given for the location of the media folder? My guess is that it will say D:\iTunes (original)\iTunes\iTunes Media. Changing this to D:\iTunes (original)\iTunes\iTunes Music ought to fix things.

Assuming that has worked take a look at Make a split library portable for tips on getting your library into the standard shape. The media folder would normally be called iTunes Media these days, and the iPod Games and Mobile Applications folder would be better located in the media folder rather than the top level iTunes folder.

If it hasn't worked let me know. I have tools for reconnecting the media files if needed.

tt2

I changed the location of the media folder to Seagate: iTunes (original)\iTunes\iTunes Music but it still doesn't work. I can play individual songs when I choose iTunes as the media player but iTunes is not able to open or locate songs in the Library. I note that my Seagate hard drive shows up as "Seagate" and not a letter hard drive, but I assume that doesn't matter.

I would be grateful for your further suggestions. Thanks.

On your Windows laptop where the library works apply the techniques in Make a split library portable to reorganize the library into a shape that can be moved from one computer to another easily.

tt2

Please explain what you meant by the sync process

What exactly is it that you want to know? You've replied to a post that doesn't mention the term sync process. A little context would help. I don't really want to read six pages of a thread that has been dormant for a year. It might be better to ask your own question in its own thread, and then post a link to that thread here.

tt2

Sorry for not being more clear on the "Sync process" but I thought you mentioned it in the question that by using this process it would help transfer songs from an external hard drive to the Mac's hard drive faster. I just didn't know what the "sync process" was and perhaps you could explain it or direct me to a good site where I could learn how to use it on my Mac. I am having a terrible time transferring music? Thanks

There are three potential locations for an iTunes library and its media. The computer's internal drive, an external drive, or some form of network storage. There isn't much difference in performance between internal and external storage, however accessing the database on network storage is significantly slower and iTunes needs to update this frequently. Performance is much better if the library files are stored locally. Devices will also sync more quickly if the data is stored locally. Raw performance would be better still on SSD, but these tend to be be much smaller than rotating drives so most libraries will quickly outgrow them. Moving a library and its media from one location to another is easier if the library is in the standard layout of a library folder that contains the media folder, which in turn contains all media. This is what I refer to as a portable library. If the media folder changed to a new location, as can happen if you follow Apple's advice for what to do as your library grows, or you simply add media from random locations without copying them into the media folder, then you end up with what I call a split library. Backing up is also easier with a portable library and, should the need arise, the backup is ready to use on any path whereas with a split library the data would all need to be restored to the original paths before it could be used. With a Mac you have the option to use Time Machine which may be ideal. For Windows I recommend a tool call SyncToy, which has equivalents on OS X. This tool scans the original source folder and a parallel backup looking for changes. If it finds new, updated, or deleted files in either location from the previous time that it scanned them, it offers to copy those changes, or sync them, to the corresponding path. Using this method for backup is much faster than simply copying the entire folder, and also gives you a chance to review the changes in case it turns out, for example, that you accidentally deleted an album in error and want to recover it from the backup.

tt2