HT1751 So what happens when the external hard drive with all of my iTunes media on it crashes??

I moved my iTunes media/library (as well as iPhoto) to an external hard drive many moons ago. It's been a great decision up until today, when the portable hard drive I was using decided to commit suicide. Is it possible to restore the lost media and library files from Time Machine, or are all of my music (and picture) files officially gone??? Help!!

If you have been doing the basics and backing up your computer, then they are not gone. They are in your backup.
Use your backup to put them back.
Mac OS X 10.6: Recovering items using Time Machine and Spotlight

Similar Messages

How do I connect my external hard drive with all of my digital media to my Apple TV network and make it accessable 24/7?

How do I connect my external hard drive with all of my digital media to my Apple TV network and make it accessable 24/7? I have the latest Apple TV, ipads, iPhones as well as a solid HP Windows machine all on my home network. Is there a way that I can connect my hard drive to my receiver or Apple TV directly so that the digital media is available on my network 24/7 rather than have it connected to my computer and available through Home Share which never works anyway??

Sorry it's all done through iTunes.
The following article(s) may help you with home sharing.
Troubleshooting Home Sharing
Troubleshooting Wi-Fi networks and connections
Recommended Wi-Fi settings
Wifi Diagnostic Software (for Mac users)
You may also find some help on this page, where I’ve collected some of the more unusual solutions to network issues.

I downloaded several cds to my external hard drive in .mp3 format. Later, I copied them to iTunes. The songs only play when the external hard drive is plugged in. I tried to load the songs from iTunes to my iPhone and the songs don't play.

I downloaded several cds to my external hard drive in .mp3 format. Later, I copied them to iTunes. The songs only play when the external hard drive is plugged in. I tried to load the songs from iTunes to my iPhone and the songs don't play. I thought iTunes allowed me to transfer music to my iPhone and play it. What am I doing wrong?

Hi skoorb1,
When adding music to iTunes, you can set it to either make a local copy of the file, or simply point to the original location of the file (for example, on an external hard drive). If it is set to do the latter, it will not be able to play or transfer those files when the external hard drive is not plugged in. You may find the following article helpful:
iTunes: About the Add to Library, Import, and Convert functions
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1347
Regards,
- Brenden

What happens when the Time Machine drive is full?

I'm on my second iMac. My first one (G5, 1984) died, and I replaced it early 2010 with an Intel mac. The transition when exceedingly well largely due to Time Machine. I just hooked the Time Machine drive to the new system, and I was soon back up running!
My home folder has 70GB of data. The Macintosh drive has 105GB of data and 395GB free. The Time Machine drive has 220GB used and 30GB free.
1. What happens when the Time Machine drive is full?
2. Do I have control over what backups get deleted?
3. If lightning strikes twice, will I still be able to restore my Intel mac like my G5 mac, even if backups get deleted?
4. Is there anyway to control what backups/backup files get deleted?
5. Any other thoughts?
Thanks.

maxseven wrote:
i have deleted the time machine folders and they are now in my trash. when i try to secure empty my trash it will delete everything but the t/m folders. how do i delete them?
Do you mean all of them? The entire Backups.backupdb folder?
That's a large mess. First, even a normal delete will take a very long time, as there are probably hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of files. Your best bet by far is to simply erase them with Disk Utility -- that will only take a few moments. If your TM drive has a single partition, see #1 in [Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html]. If there are other partition(s) on the drive, see #2 there.
If not, and you only deleted some of the folders, you have a different, worse problem. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't do a very good job of warning folks: +*Never move, change, or delete anything in your backups via the Finder or Terminal.+*
You shouldn't have to delete backups at all, since Time Machine will do that automatically when the disk/partition gets full. But you can do it without harm via Time Machine. See #12 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
A normal delete will take a very long time, as there are probably tens or hundreds of thousands of items, each of which must be individually deleted. A secure delete will take much, much longer, as each deleted file must be overwritten with zeros.

How do I move a partition on my mac hard drive, to an external hard drive so that i can run windows when the external hard drive is connected

How do I move a partition on my mac hard drive, to an external hard drive so that i can run windows when the external hard drive is connected

Are you talking about a Bootcamp partition? You can't boot Windows from an external drive.

What happened to my external hard drive?

All of a sudden, it appears that my iMac is not recognizong my external hard drive used for Time Machine. When I open Time Machine, I get an error stating that it is not set up. It also shows that my last back-up was 08/04. There is no data in Time Machine. Did my drive die?

leoraponi wrote:
What I mean is that the PC recognizes the hardware. Not sure if thats a true test. In any event, I tried your suggestion and get the following: "resource busy".
In FINDER, under devices, it shows the Mac HD and iDisk. Shouldn't my external USB drive appear there as well?
Should I just buy a new external hard drive?
you might have to but it's not clear that your drive is dead. try reformatting it by booting from the leopard install DVD and using disk utility from there.

What happens when the external icon jumps on top on the hard drive icon on the desktop?

The external drive icon jumped to the hard drive icon on the desktop and after that happen the iMAC started running slow. Not sure how that happen or what is happening to the iMAC after it happen. All my applications are running and launching slow. Also, when I tried moving files to the external drive I'll get a "error code -36". When I looked up the error message it says that the file is corrupted even though I could still open them. How can I fix this problem and not lose any files? Thanks for any help.

RRFS has probably got the answer basically - but the combined contents of the two drives has probably maxed out the drive space on Macintosh HD, meaning the OS can't use virtual memory properly.
Open a Finder window and read the available space at the bottom.
If you have copied the drive, it should show as a folder under Macintosh HD in the Finder.
I hesitate to tell you to delete the whole folder as that may be too much for Finder to cope with. Open the folder and delete files and folders in small chunks, emptying the trash each time before doing the next..
Meanwhile, if you go to the Finder preferences and uncheck the item for Hard Disks in the desktop list, then move the icon for the external away from that corner before re-enabling the Hard disk option.
You may need to go to View options from the right-click menu on desktop and set 'arrange by' to 'none' in order to get the icon to stay where you want it.

What happens when WAE Cache Hard Drive is full?

Hi,
From a architectual point of view, when does the WAE delete old cache. When the hard drive fills up how does it know what information to delete?
Thanks
Brad

In WAAS, the oldest DRE and CIFS cache data ages out and is deleted when a partition full threshold is reached. This is also true for the /local1/ directory where the log files are kept, so if transaction logging is being done, it should delete the older files first when newer ones are being written. However, each cache aging algorithm is slightly different.
The WAE should be running at maximum efficiency when the disks are actually full and some aging out is happening. You should be getting the most cache hits at this point.
Hope that helps,
Dan

Sharing external hard drive with all home macs and pc's

I'd like to connect my go flex desk hard drive to my BT home hub 4 and access it through my macbook pro, is this possible and how can I do this myself?

You need to format the external drive to a format that can be used by Windows, OSx, and your BT home hub (what ever that is). So I think your best bet would be to format it FAT32 or ExFat since Windows and OSx can read/write to a hard drive formatted as FAT32 or ExFat. Read your BT home hub documentation to determine how to connect a hard drive to it. Most likely it will have a usb port if hard drives can be connected to it.

The external hard drive with my iTunes library on it died, but I have it backed up on another drive. What's the best way to make iTunes switch to the new drive for reference?

I've been through similar problems before and used the .xml file to restore the library, but is a better way of just changing the drive pathways in iTunes so it doesn't have to rebuild everything from scratch? I'm using a PC with Windows Vista.

Change the drive letter of the backup drive so it matches the one that died. If necessary move/rename the backup folder so that it matches the old path of the media folder.
tt2

I'm wanting to hook up an external hard drive with all of my movies that are ripped so I can airplay them through my apple tv.

I know that there isn't a way to do that throught the airport extreme, but can I with the airport express? Is there any possible way to do this? Currently they are all on my computer and I have been streaming them but I want to get them off of my computer. Thoughts?

no the airport express does not support discs
but you can get a NAS and connect it's ethernet cable to the airport express thats what I do with mine

I want to put my iTunes library on an external hard drive but leave my favourite songs on the computer to access without the external hard drive and when using iMovie. Is there a way to do this?

I have filled my hard drive, half with music, half with photos. I want to take my music off, and put it onto an external hard drive. However, I would still like to have access to favourite songs and playlists when the external hard drive isn't plugged in. I would also like to access this music to use with iMovie. Is there a way to do this?

You will have to engage a split library which means you will have to start answering questions on this forum because you will need to learn a lot about how iTunes works in order not that have a big mess at the end of it all. It also won't be easy when the time comes to relocate it all to different drives.
You can go to advanced preferences and turn off organize media and copy to items to media folder when adding items to library. Next read about how to selectively consolidate items to the external drive.
Sept. 2010, Consolidate selected content - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2589812 and April 2014, https://discussions.apple.com/message/25414357
"...selected the new tracks directly in iTunes, Control-clicked on the selection, and saw that now you can consolidate selected items." - http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090919000326840
Remember that when you start iTunes without the external drive turned on iTunes will present you with a bunch of broken links. If you have automatic downloads enabled with iCloud you may have to turn that off to prevent iTunes from repopulating your drive trying to deal with those "missing" tracks.
If you add tracks in bunches to iTunes and want them to go to different media folders you will need to either add them by holding down the option key while dragging if the desired media folder is not the one set in preferences, or by changing the media folder in preferences. Changing media folder preferences only applies to new files added, not old ones.
Okay, I am going to stop typing because you might just reply to me, "Oh, okay, forget it," and I don't need the exercise.
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391

I just backed up my mac to an external hard drive using Time Machine. What would happen if I turn Time Machine off and then plug the external hard drive back into my computer?

I just backed up my mac to an external hard drive using Time Machine. What would happen if I turn Time Machine off and then plug the external hard drive back into my computer?
What I am ultimately wanting to do is make more room on my computer by backing up all of my files onto the external hard drive and then deleting them off of my computer. However, neededing to be able to retrieve them from the external hard drive later down the road.
From what I have read and am trying to understand, is that I probably shouldn't have used time machine. I need to use the external hard drive like a basic flash drive where I can put things on and get things off without having it automatically update through time machine everytime I connect it to my computer.
Not tech savvy at all and barely understand basics. I need very simple and easy to understand explanations.

sydababy wrote:
and then deleting them off of my computer.
BIG BIG MISTAKE ..... youre making a linchpin deathtrap for your data trying to shove everything on a single fragile HD.
Dont suffer the tragedy other people make, buy another or 2 more HD, theyre cheap as dust.
The number of people who have experienced terror by having a single external HD backup is enormous. One failure that WILL HAPPEN, and kaput,......all gone!
Dont do it, its all about redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.
follow here:
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection
Deleting them off your computer is fine....having only ONE copy is extremely BAD.
The Tragedy that will be, the tragedy that never should be
Always presume correctly that your data is priceless and takes a very long time to create and often is irreplaceable. Always presume accurately that hard drives are extremely cheap, and you have no excuse not to have multiple redundant copies of your data copied on hard drives and squirreled away several places, lockboxes, safes, fireboxes, offsite and otherwise.
Hard drives aren't prone to failure…hard drives are guaranteed to fail (the very same is true of SSD). Hard drives dont die when aged, hard drives die at any age, and peak in death when young and slowly increase in risk as they age.
Never practice at any time for any reason the false premise and unreal sense of security in thinking your data is safe on any single external hard drive. This is never the case and has proven to be the single most common horrible tragedy of data loss that exists.
Many 100s of millions of hours of lost work and data are lost each year due to this single common false security. This is an unnatural disaster that can avoid by making all data redundant and then redundant again. If you let a $60 additional redundant hard drive and 3 hours of copying stand between you and years of work, then you've made a fundamental mistake countless 1000s of people each year have come to regret.

I have all my music on my external hard drive when I try to add it to iTunes it is automatically added to my MacBook Pro's hard drive. How do I stop this from happening? I just want the music to stay on the external hard drive. Thanks!

I have all my music on my external hard drive when I try to add it to iTunes it is automatically added to my MacBook Pro's hard drive. How do I stop this from happening? I just want the music to stay on the external hard drive. Thanks!

This is true of course, but doesn't cover the situation where some files are in the iTunes Media folder and others are on an external drive. In my case I keep my music in the Media folder and all my films on an external drive (there are too many to have on the internal drive). In iTunes 11, and before, it was easy to add those external files by holding down the alt/opt key while dragging to the sidebar. In iTunes 12 this is no longer possible. There are several workarounds: use TuneSpan to move the file after it's been added; delete the file from the Media folder and empty the trash then use iTunes Get Info which will report the file is missing and allow you to locate it; constantly switch the Add to iTunes toggle on and off as required. All of these require a lot more work than just holding down the alt/opt key while adding.
It constantly gets harder.

I have both the 250 gb high performance hard drive and a 1 ter byte hard drive. What happens when the 250 gb hardrive is full?

I have both the 250 gb high performance hard drive and a 1 ter byte hard drive. What happens when the 250 gb hardrive is full? This on Imac desktop

Never let a drive get more than 80% to 85% full.
AND keep 50-100 GB of free space on a startup drive to allow proper function of virtual memory in all OS X versions from 10.5x to current versions.
10.4x can get by with 20 GB of free space on the boot drive, but more is always better.
I try and keep all boot drives between 50 and 60% of capacity.
Beyond 60% and up to 90% capacity, seek times increase almost exponentially; performance suffers.

HT1751 So what happens when the external hard drive with all of my iTunes media on it crashes??

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for