Changing iTunes Library Drive Letter

Ah, not so simple then. Here's my standard post on broken links.

The "missing file" issue with exclamation marks happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, or the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter, or you've moved a non-portable library to a different path (see Make a split library portable for details). It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place, or that you've been too aggressive when deleting duplicates. See Getting iTunes & Windows Media Player to play nicely if you're trying to access your media with any other media players.

Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to Get Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the file tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case. If everything is where it is supposed to be try Repair security permissions for iTunes for Windows.

In some cases iTunes may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info, or when playing a track, but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. Although it says something like "use the same location" I think it expects to find the tracks in the same artist & album layout they were in previously, with one systematic change to the path.

If another application like Windows Media Player has moved/renamed the files, or the library has been moved from OS X to Windows, then the chances are that subtle differences in naming strategies will make it hard to restore the media to the precise path that iTunes is expecting. In such cases, as long as the missing files can be found somewhere, you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes. See this post for an explanation of how it works. It might need some tweaking if your media is in a non-standard layout.

If you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:

1. The location of the media folder under Edit > Preferences > Advanced
2. The location of a sample missing track shown under Get Info > File > Location that begins file://localhost/
3. The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2

Note the addition of file://localhost/ (and the flipped direction of slashes in Windows) is normal for a file that isn't quite where iTunes is expecting to find it.

tt2

If your library was in the standard layout on the old system simply place the iTunes folder at D:\iTunes, then shift-start iTunes and choose the iTunes Library.itl file inside it. See Make a split library portable for background. If the library won't work on the new path for some reason I have tools or techniques for repairing the broken links.

tt2

Great. Once you are using the library files in J:\iTunes and all the media is in J:\iTunes\iTunes Media you can use Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy for cloning the library to another drive with enough room.

tt2

And to answer an earlier query to the original post:

1. The location of the media folder under Edit > Preferences > Advanced - D:\Users\Mom & Dad\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music
2. The location of a sample missing track shown under Get Info > File > Location that begins file://localhost/ - file://localhost/C:/Users/Mom & Dad/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Wilco/A.M_/07 That's Not The Issue.m4a
3. The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2 - D:\Users\Mom & Dad\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Wilco\A.M_\07 That's Not The Issue.m4a

Am I glad I found this topic out here. I have a similar problem - motherboard went "poof" (everything was backed up) and I had to get a new PC. Same issue with the C drive. So I will try the method above. However, I have a twist. My main iTunes library was on the old PC's C drive. It's C drive was too small, so I had to split it up amongst two other external hard drives - yes, my iTunes library is split across 3 drives. I've had it this way for several years and it's survived two prior PC moves and multiple OS upgrades. It was always easy to migrate before, but I seem to be having difficulty doing it now. I have about 64K songs in my library and, as you might guess, would like for this process to be as painless as possible. Any additional tips for this particular configuration?

Hi,

As long as you have the library files and all of the content then it should be possible to restore/place it at matching locations to make the library work again. Have you assigned the same drive letters to your external drives? Or we can talk about repairing broken links if you give me a bit more detail.

tt2

I was able to assign the same drive letter to external drive J. Unfortunately, I was not able to do so with external drive F. F is now the CD/DVD drive and external drive F on my old PC is now external drive G on my new PC. I used to be able to update the iTunes library xml file for tougher cases, but that no longer seems to be an option any more. So I've got a new D that used to be a C and a new G that used to be an F. The good news is that I was able to bring up my old library in iTunes will all my playlists and prior options, but I don't have the time (nor the inclination) to correct broken links on 74K tracks, sequentially, one at a time.... Please let me know what additional information you need. Thank you.

You can change the drive letter for your optical drive to Z: which will free up F: so you can make G: into F: again.

Does drive C: have enough free space to hold a copy of the folder D:\Users\Mom & Dad\Music\iTunes an a temporary basis at least?

What is the combined size of the whole library? Ideally you would consolidate the whole thing to a new drive that can hold it all with room for growth in the portable shape, and get a second to act as a mirrored backup. (Splitting the backup over your existing externals is a viable short term approach, but requires more work.)

tt2

So I was able to rename the optical drive to Z and then renamed G to F. That took care of the bulk of the library, so it's getting better. I may have to move some things around to move iTunes content from D to C, let me check and reply here - hopefully shortly.

The size of the iTunes folder on D is 206 GB, while the size of the C drive is 118 GB - and that's it's total size, so even if I cleared it out, still not enough space. The size of the whole library is 437 GB. The D drive is 1TB, the F drive is 232 GB, and the J drive is 2 TB. Two PCs ago, the F drive was my first foray into expansion and it's been very dependable. I've never consolidated, but after this kerfuffle, it may be time to do so (perhaps to the J drive) once I get things working again. All files are backed up externally, so I'm in good shape there.

So it looks like 206 GB of my music is currently "unfindable" according to iTunes.

OK. Have you used the same user name for your user profile in this new machine? If you can create the folder C:\Users\Mom & Dad\Music\iTunes then the following entered in an elevated command prompt will allow iTunes to read the data from drive D: as if it was on drive C:

MkLink /J "C:\Users\Mom & Dad\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media" "D:\Users\Mom & Dad\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media"

It is however important that iTunes doesn't try to write any data through the junction as it will break it. Once you have confirmed that iTunes can now see data from each of the three sources I would suggest you change the media folder to J:\iTunes\iTunes Media and then consolidate the whole library. You can then copy the library files into J:\iTunes and shift-start iTunes to connect to them there.

I'm assuming that J:\iTunes and J:\iTunes\iTunes Media don't currently exist, that J: has 437Gb free, and that you haven't missed anything when calculating the size of the library. (Have you added Movies, TV Shows etc. as well as Music?)

tt2

The username is different.

I will try your suggestion with the MkLink command and see if that works. If it does, I will consolidate my library on J. It has over 1.5 TB free and I have no movies or shows, pretty much just music.

CORRECTION! The link did work. I typed in verbatim what you had as opposed to replacing the word "Media" with "Music". Once I removed the old link and typed it in correctly, I can now see all of my music. I am now going to start the consolidation process.

Odd. I changed the media file location to J and then consolidated the files per the iTunes option, but my music is still in its original location, I assumed it would move. I am currently copying the library files (but not the music files) to J and will open per your instructions and see what happens then.