Can't get new install of iTunes to recognize media on external drive

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2

turiningtest2,

I stumbled onto this page while trying to solve my itunes library problem. I read through this and am still uncertain how to proceed. I have had an itunes account for many years but my library outgrew my internal hard drive so I put it on an external drive and redirected itunes to it through Preferences. My computer crashed, was wiped clean and is running Windows 7. I reinstalled itunes. I used CopyTrans to move my music on my ipod classic (96GB) to a new external HD (2TB). But it can't do it since it is looking for a the itunes library.itl. i suppose. Could you help me from this point?

In my perfect world, I'd run itunes on my PC with the music on the portable HD that I can also disconnect and carry to my MAC at work. I'd appreciate your thoughts on how to set that up for the MAC as well. Many thanks.

Addendum--a clarification

I was successful in copying my music from my ipod to the external drive. I was not successful in making itunes recognize it as a library that it could access..

thanks

I suspect you need to make a new iTunes library at the root of the external drive, move the media inside the iTunes Media folder that is created inside that at \iTunes\iTunes Media, then add all of the media to the library. See Make a split library portable for background. See also Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device. This shows how to associate your devices with the new library and there are some tools listed there towards the end that can recover ratings, play counts and playlists. In addition get yourself another drive and Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy.

Note that a portable library can be moved between Windows and OS X provided it is on a compatible file system, e.g. FAT32, or NTFS if you have an NTFS drive for OS X or HFS+ if you have an HFS+ driver for Windows. The first time the library is opened after any switch involves a considerable delay.

tt2

thank you. I had spent some time on the "make a split library portable" but was still somewhat lost

I have a few basic questions.

1. How do I make a library at the root of the external drive? is it by holding down the shift key when i start up itune and select "create a library"? Or is is something else?

2. Once i've done that, how do i "add all of the media to the library"? can I move all of the songs into a folder under iTunes Media and be done? or do I have to add each file separately? (I hope not, i have amassed nearly 20,000 songs).

I'll look at your other postings about recovery of music from the ipod and backing up with SyncToy. and thanks for your comment about sharing between MAC and Win. I don't know the answer but will ask my colleague at work.

thanks

1. Yes

2. Enable the menu bar with Ctrl+B. Use File > Add Folder to Library.

tt2

thanks, i will try all of this. I appreciate your quick help.🙂

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2

TT2:

Thanks to you, I successfully created a new library (iTunes 1)on my external drive that included the subfolders Album Artwork and ITunes Media. Through iTunes I then added all my music folders to the library. To my surprise they didn't copy to the iTunes Media folder but stayed where they were on the same external drive. I thought that was okay. However when I imported a new Joe Jackson CD, the songs were stored in iTunes 1/iTunes Media/Music/Joe Jackson. It wasn't stored with my other folders. My preference is to have all the music folders in one place. Can I do that? Did I miss a step? thanks

I

You need to have these options enabled in Edit > Preferences > Advanced:

1. This is the location of your media folder - in your case this will be iTunes 1\iTunes Media on your external drive
2. This allows iTunes to automatically organize your media files and folders based on the metadata ("tags") associated with your media
3. This ensures that when you add media to your library it is always copied into your media folders. If this is not set then you'll get the symptoms you describe, where the location of media is then dependent on the method used to add it:

Note that changing these settings only affects future additions to your library. To apply them retrospectively - for example, to take the media that you added using File > Add Folder to Library... and that is still in its original location - select File > Library > Organize Library... then when you get this prompt:

check Consolidate Files and, if not greyed out, Reorganize files ..., and click OK. This will copy any media that is in your iTunes library but not in the iTunes Media folder to the latter location. Note that this is a copy operation - once it is complete you should check that everything is present and correct with the correct file location and then delete the old versions of your files and folders.

hhgttg27

this was very helpful. I'm copying the files now to the itunes media folder. thank you very much. the illustrations were also very helpful. I appreciate it.

You're welcome 🙂

Thanks from me too. 🙂

tt2