Itunes Library on external drive is dying ...

Question

Level 1

9 points

Itunes Library on external drive is dying ...

I have my iTunes library on a portable hard drive that has begun to make those dreaded clicking noises. I am going tomorrow to buy a new drive. My question is, if I simply backup the whole drive to the new one and change the location of the iTunes library to the new drive in iTunes, will it find everything that was on the old drive or do I need to export the library inside iTunes to the new drive? I have collected a ton of old 1950's TV shows and would hate to lose them as some of the DVD's I ripped them from were left behind when I moved. Any help would be appreciated. What ever I need to do, I think maybe I will buy two drives and do it twice and just put one aside in case of another failure.

Thanks!

iPad 2, iOS 8.2

Posted on Jun 1, 2015 8:01 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

turingtest2

Level 10

272,743 points

Jun 1, 2015 8:09 AM in response to Herd72

See Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy and Make a split library portable.

The first link details a folder cloning tool that scores over copying with Windows Explorer, particularly if there are files that won't read. Explorer just falls over, SyncToy will move on to the next file. You can try again with SyncToy after giving the drive a rest and it may be able to copy files that were skipped on a previous pass.

The second link deals with the shape of the library. If yours is portable you can shift-start-iTunes to connect to the copy on the new drive, or if split you can swap the drive letters around to get a working library, then deal with making it portable later if you want to.

Another drive to act as backup to the first replacement drive is a good move, and you have my recommendation for the tool to keep the two copies up to date.

tt2

Reply