Q: Reformatted win7 laptop will not recognize iTunes library from external. Thousands of songs are from cds, but iPhone5/6 are not affected. All songs are in library, but with !!!'s. I am stationed overseas and my stuff is in storage for 3+years. Pls help!
So I reformatted my Win7 laptop for the 1st time in 5 years this morning. I read the self help guides, copied my iTunes library on an external HD, reinstalled iTunes, and copied the library into the appropriate folder. iTunes sees all of my songs, but when attempting to play individual tunes that were not purchased via iTunes, the service states it could not locate the individual file and refuses to play it, even though it is physically located on the laptop HD at this point. As I have over 20gb of music from hundreds of cds, this is a problem. Further, as an active duty servicemember recently stationed overseas, I have no access to my cd collection as it remains in long-term storage State-side for the next 3-5 years. I have both iPhone 5 and 6+ which still have the entire library saved, but also cannot seem to either transfer their files outright or at least use them to establish the validity of their provenance for the iTunes program on my laptop.
So I guess the question is how do I validate the iTunes library on my laptop? Is there a way to transfer files from the phones, other than those purchased in iTunes, so that the laptop iTunes will recognize their legitimacy? Am I just SOL here, or what? I cannot understand why the phones fail to talk with iTunes to establish legitimacy for the music, since all three are linked to my Apple ID and my iTunes account.
Thanks in advance for any help towards solving this issue. Happy Mother's Day to you all, as well.
iTunes, Windows 7
Posted on May 9, 2015 4:43 PM