Library on external HD copied to another external HD, but iTunes cannot find

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Level 1

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Library on external HD copied to another external HD, but iTunes cannot find

I created an iTunes library on an external HD that was identified by Windows 7 as my Seagate Backup Plus (E:). I copied to a second HD that became labeled as Seagate Backup Plus (F:). If I remove the E drive, iTunes cannot locate songs on the F drive automatically. However, it can find them if I point it to the exact song manually. What way can I get iTunes to identify the songs on the F drive? Will changing the label on the F drive to E drive work? If so, how do I do this? The size of my library is far in excess of my internal HD.

Seagate Backup Plus HDs-OTHER, Windows 7, HP PC Laptop

Posted on Apr 17, 2015 4:49 PM

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Answer 1

hhgttg27

Level 5

5,591 points

Apr 17, 2015 5:37 PM in response to sjgarrett

When you have a split library - with the iTunes database (iTunes Library.itl) on the internal drive and media on an external drive - iTunes is dependent on absolute paths, so will not be able to locate media when you change the drive letter for the media storage location. As a short-term solution, changing the new external drive from F: to E: will allow media file locations to be resolved correctly.

However, a more robust configuration is to have the complete iTunes library - database, artwork, associated files as well as media - on the external drive. As long as the structure is like this:

with the iTunes Media folder in the same folder as the iTunes Media folder, then iTunes can accommodate drive letter changes. Using this approach makes creating and maintaining a backup of your library much easier - as well as allowing you to connect the external drive to any PC running iTunes and be able to access your library (SHIFT-start iTunes and select the iTunes Library.itl file on the external HDD). See turingtest2's user tip on Make a split library portable for details of the steps that may be necessary to bring your library into this preferred layout.

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Answer 2

hhgttg27

Level 5

5,591 points

Apr 17, 2015 7:44 PM in response to hhgttg27

Oops ... the bit after the image should say: "with the iTunes Media folder in the same folder as the iTunes Library.itl file ..."

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