Running itunes on two pc's with external hard drive library

You need to have the iTunes database (iTunes Library.itl) on the external drive (see turingtest2's tutorial on Make a split library portable for details of what the resulting file/folder structure should look like). Then, hold down SHIFT while you start iTunes and select the iTunes Library.itl file on the external drive. This will give you equivalent access to your library and all media on either laptop. You only need to do this once on each machine - iTunes will look for the library in the same location when started up again. The only exception to this is if you happen to start iTunes without the external drive attached.

To keep everything consistent, you should have the "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes Media folder ..." selected in both cases.

Once everything is working I strongly suggest you acquire a second external drive and use this to keep a backup of your main library - especially important in this case as external drives are more prone to errors/failure than internal ones.

What's the structure of your E:\iTunes Music folder? It's probably better to just name it "iTunes" so that it parallels the standard iTunes layout, with contents as illustrated below:

I'm not sure what you mean by "the files keep opening and opening". When you Shift-start iTunes you get this prompt:

Click on Choose Library..., you'll get a dialog in which you can select your E: drive, then the iTunes folder (or iTunes Music as you've named it), in which you'll see the iTunes Library.itl file. Like this (where the drive selected in your case will be E:, not K:) -

Select the iTunes Library.itl file and click Open. Is this not what you're seeing?

"Yes!! The little special iTunes file is EXACTLY what I don't see."

Since you are able to run iTunes the database clearly exists - based on your description it is not in the same location as your media, so will probably be in the default location (C:\Users\username\Music\iTunes).

"realize that I should download and work from ONE computer for iTunes. I don't think it's bad to store the files on an external drive (do you?) versus my pc drive, but I'll back them up somewhere too. OR do most people keep their music files on a laptop?!"

You can, with care, run iTunes across multiple machines. Storing media (or, if you follow the method described in turingtest2's notes on Make a split library portable, the complete library) on an external drive is common, especially for those with large libraries. Internal laptop drives tend to be relatively small, and once Windows and applications are installed the space available for media storage may be limited. I use a 1TB 3.0 external drive for my library; this is backed up several times a week to a second external drive and periodically replicated to two other systems (I have one in my office and one secondary system at home). Whatever location you choose creating and maintaining a backup is essential. Having your library in the "portable" format described in the notes referenced above makes this a lot easier - see Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy (another of turingtest2's excellent tips) for a method that many find reliable.

"That's because I have both boxes checked on my preferences, correct? When I download a CD, it downloads to my external HD."

Correct - with those preferences checked, all new media will be placed in the location specified on the same screen, using the folder layout and naming conventions illustrated in my original response.

"Lol, so how do I re-round up my .ixl file that seems to be missing?"

See above - the database file isn't missing, just in a different location from the one you're looking at.

"Probably not by uninstalling iTunes and removing the music file on my pc, in an attempt to just start over"

I would suggest following the procedures in Make a split library portable so that:

• you have a folder called iTunes in the root of your E: drive
• this folder contains your database file (iTunes Library.itl)
• this folder also contains your iTunes Media folder (so the location specified in Edit > Preferences > Advanced would be E:\iTunes\iTunes Media)

Note that you should follow the steps needed to allow iTunes to reorganize files and folders itself; do not try to move media around yourself using Windows Explorer - doing so is a surefire way to end up with broken links / unplayable songs / duplicates.

This is exactly how I have iTunes set up (other than my external drive being K:). Preferences are set as follows:

and the K:\iTunes folder (external drive) looks like this:

and the iTunes Media subfolder like this:

"I guess to get my other music into the database, I have to drag and drop them into the iTunes program. when I'm done, I can get rid of the other files."

I would take a step back and make sure that you have iTunes configured to use the layout that you want to use (and I strongly suggest that should be with everything under E:\iTunes, as in my previous response). Run some tests to make sure that its working for you and then re-import the bulk of your music. It would probably be worth while getting another external drive, start from scratch to set this up as your primary library location for iTunes, and then import music from your existing drive. Once that's all working, you can then use the original external drive for backups.

I'm not in front of the right computer to put together a full response ... bear with me, I'll post some recommendations here later. From a quick look at your screenshots you have all the right pieces but not necessarily within an optimal layout. In particular, having the iTunes database (iTunes Library.itl) inside a folder that contains media - E:\iTunes Music\Music\iTunes 1 - is non-ideal.

One question, though: with the folder structures you've shown in your screenshots, can iTunes find and play your media, or are you finding broken links ... "!" next to song names, error messages like this?

Making some assumptions:

• The iTunes Library.itl file located at E:\iTunes Music\Music\iTunes 1 is your current/active database
• When you run iTunes all your media files can be located and will play
• You have free space on your external hard drive - at least as much as currently used for your E:\iTunes Music folder

If one or more of these are not valid, STOP HERE and report back - some parts of the procedure below would be different.

Before starting I would strongly suggest taking a backup of your E: drive as insurance against anything not working as it is supposed to.

1. Exit iTunes
2. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to drive E:
3. Select Organize > Folder and Search Options, then the View tab - make sure that the Show hidden files, folders and drives option is selected
4. Create a new folder E:\iTunes - this will be the new starting point for your iTunes library
5. Navigate to the folder where your library files are currently stored (E:\iTunes Music\Music\iTunes 1) - you've already provided a screenshot of this, but with the Show hidden files, folders and drives option selected you should see one more file:
   
   (sentinel is a hidden file that iTunes uses while running).
6. Select all five files in this folder:
   
   then right-click > Copy or press Ctrl-C.
7. Still in Windows Explorer, navigate to the E:\iTunes folder you created in step 4, then right-click > Paste or press Ctrl-V. At this point the E:\iTunes folder should look like this:
   
8. Now hold down the Shift key and start iTunes. You'll get this prompt:
   
   Click on Choose Library..., navigate to E:\iTunes and select the iTunes Library.itl file (that you just copied into this folder). Click Open. iTunes will start and show your library with the same content as before.
9. Select Edit > Preferences > Advanced. Click the Reset button, which will change your iTunes Media folder location to E:\iTunes\iTunes Media, which is what you should want it to be (ignore the I: drive shown here, yours should be E:)
   
10. Click OK - you should get this prompt:
    
    Click Yes. This doesn't actually move your files, there's one more step. Still in iTunes, select File > Library > Organize Library... When you see this prompt:
    
    check the Consolidate Files box and - if not greyed out - the Reorganize files ... box. The click OK. iTunes will now start copying your media files to the new, preferred location and layout. The time taken to complete this process depends on the size of your library - for a small one it'll be a few minutes; for a large library considerably more. Allow the process to finish.
11. Once complete, your library in iTunes should look exactly as it was before - you should be able to select and play any of your songs/albums. However, if you right-click > Get Info on any song and select the File tab, you should see that the file location has been updated:
    
    and if you go to Windows Explorer and navigate to E:\iTunes\iTunes Media you'll see a Music subfolder which in turn contains one folder for each artist:
    
    In your case the drive reference at the top will be "My Passport (E:)" and the folders listed will be those for your library.

Successful completion of all these steps should now have brought your library into the "portable" or "well-formed" layout. Just to make sure everything's working:

• Exit iTunes
• In Windows Explorer, rename your E:\iTunes Music folder to something like "Old iTunes"
• Restart iTunes, without holding down shift. Your library should be available to you as in step 11 above - however, its worth testing a significant sample of your music just to make sure that everything is in the right place and plays correctly.

One point I didn't cover is the case where the other (older) iTunes library you have - the one where the iTunes Library.itl file is on the C: drive - may be referencing albums/songs that were not in the library that was on the E: drive and that the procedure described above will bring into a more standard format. If this is the case then there are a couple of approaches that you can use to merge the two libraries - report back if this is the case.

If this last point doesn't apply, you can now go ahead and delete the renamed E:\iTunes Music folder - otherwise there will be a few more steps to go through before you can finally get rid of this.

Finally, once you've completed everything successfully, work out how you're going to create and maintain a backup of your library. With the approach described above all of iTunes' data is in one place - E:\iTunes. I would suggest using the method described in turingtest2's notes on Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy ... remembering that "Hard drives fail. Always. You just don't know when its going to happen."

Apologies for the length of these notes - however, based on your description of your current setup I thought it worth going through all the steps to bring it into a more conventional layout.

I just realized that I picked up the wrong screenshot for step 7 above ... it should actually be like this:

(the Album Artwork folder won't appear at this point in the process).

Good 🙂.

However, going back to your original question, if you restructure your library as I described, you can then plug your hard drive into any PC that has iTunes installed on it, shift-start it, and select the library file on your external drive ... your complete library is then available to you. You may get the same result with a different layout, but the well-formed/portable one makes this more likely to succeed.