How do I create a new Itunes account for my external HD?

Question

Hi. I am a graduate student with a huge amount of music files for academia.  I store the academia music files on my external HD, since it will just take up too much space on my computer.  I wanted to create a separate Itunes account just for my external HD music files.  How do I go about doing this? I tried to set it up and created a new account, but it automatically synced to my computer Itunes and I ended up deleting all of my personal music, video and reading articles on my personal itunes account.

Answer 1

As a graduate student you will quickly learn the importance of exact terminology.  I presume your colleague told you to copy the "iTunes folder".  You can't copy just iTunes (well, you can, but it isn't easy).  Saying "iTunes" on its own refers to the application itself, not the library.
You do not need to make a new account.  This again gets confusing unless you tell us exactly what you did.  As I said before, an "iTunes account" is something you log into to make a purchase from the iTunes Store.  A "computer account" is a whole new user area on your computer and isn't made on a different hard drive.  An "iTunes library" is a collection of files and folders that generate the window you see when you start the iTunes application.
I do not know how you are ending up with two icons on the dock.  While it is possible to do that it isn't at all normal unless you somehow are running two copies of iTunes at the same time.  That is exceedingly difficult to do and people have unsuccessfully tried and would like to know how you did it.
You can have two independent libraries and there won't be any crosssover from one to the other.  I have four on my computer.  Use the procedure I outlined earlier to create a second library and to switch between them.
I was a graduate student many years ago and one  of the first things I learned to do so I didn't lose years of research  was to make multiple backup copies of anything I generated by computer,  especially before performing any major changes to the computer such as  installing new software or substantial file rearrangement.  I kept several  copies in different buildings on campus and a copy at home in another  part of town just in case the campus was wiped out by a disaster.