ITunes cannot locate purchased music. It was stored on an external hard drive that has crashed. How can I recover the songs?

iTunes cannot locate purchased music. It was stored on an external hard drive that has crashed. How can I recover the songs?

Hello, nwestpha.
Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities.
You may find this article helpful in locating your missing media.
iTunes: Finding lost media and downloads
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1408
Cheers,
Jason H.

Similar Messages

How do I retrieve my iphoto library from the Time Machine back-up drive, when the original iphoto library was on a separate external hard drive that has crashed?

I recently backed up my iMAC and Simpletech external hard-drive to a 1 TB WD Passport external hard drive, using Time Machine's back-up utility. Today, I tried to access my iphoto library from the back-up drive, but received a message saying "the iPhoto library is a Time Machine back up, and so cannot be used as the main library. Relaunch iPHoto with options key held down to choose another library." Since my Simpletech died on me, what other iPhoto library is it expecting me to access? I know approximately 169 GB were backed up, and my iPhoto library is roughly 54 GB.
Angie in Charlotte

Thanks. I will try going through TM. Since my Simpletech is on the way out, I'll be plugging in a new external hard drive (other than the back-up drive) and trying to restore the library to the new drive. Any advice or warning if this is NOT the right thing to do?
Meanwhile, that is a great tip to do an alternate back-up using a different means. It's been tough to figure out how to "preserve access" to digital images and files for posterity, knowing the hardware will always fail/obsolesce sooner or later, and that "clouds" are only as good as their consistent and reliable accessibility. Upping the odds with redundancy will help dull the edge of my "access anxiety", though logically, it can never relieve it. Will look into
Carbon Copy Cloner.

HT201272 Lost 111 songs, not found on my hard drive/computer anywhere. How can I recover the songs from previously purchased items? I get amn "i" in circle that says can't locate song, and when I try, it goes nowhere. How do I find the songs previously pu

I've been trying to locate my lost song files on my computer and in my iTunes purchased library. However, when I try to go through itunes purchased to redownload prevously purchased songs, it says they have all been downloaded to my computer. These are the songs that show up with a small "i" in a circle in my library. I click to "locate" but cannot find them anywhere. How can I find them and/or re-download these songs?

Tunes works through a database file which has a list of your tracks. When you click on a track it looks up in the database which file it needs to play, then plays the file. If something breaks this link then you get ! The two main ways to get ! are to move a file from where iTunes expects it to be, or to delete it altogether. I don't know which has happened in your case. You can try using Spotlight to find a file for the one referred to in a broken link. If the files have been moved then they need to be moved back. If they were deleted completely you will have to restore them from a backup or download them again from the iTunes Store and rebuild your library.

My laptop was stolen and with it my itunes, all of my music (including non-apple downloaded content) is still on my iphone 5, how can I transfer the files to my new laptop which is authorised to the same apple ID?

my laptop was stolen and with it my itunes, all of my music (including non-apple downloaded content) is still on my iphone 5, how can I transfer the files to my new laptop which is authorised to the same apple ID?

See this user tip for recovering the media from the iPhone: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3991

I opened my iPhoto library today which was stored on an external hard drive and several of my videos now will not play. The weird thing is that each file shows a duration of 1 second and when I open them it just shows one frame. What the

I opened my iPhoto library today which was stored on an external hard drive and several of my videos now will not play at all. The weird thing is that each file shows a duration of 1 second and when I open them it just shows one frame. What the !&%$#@ Where did my original video files go?

Sounds like a good plan, you can never be to safe and having a second External HD is safer than one.
The only thing that I would do different, is setup the 3T as my TimeMachine Backup and then erase and move my Photos, Videos and perhaps even iTunes Media to the 1T. That way you will have room to backup both the Internal Hard Drive and the 1T External Hard Drive to the 3T using TimeMachine.
Take your time, study and use the > Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions if you get stuck or aren't sure how to make the move.
Also see > iPhoto: How to move the Library folder to a new location
iMovie ’08: Storing or moving your video library to an external hard disk
and > iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder

I have all my music on an external media drive that has crashed. How can I get the music of my ipod touch back onto the comupter without loosing the music when it syncs?

I have all my music on an external media drive that has crashed. How can I get the music of my ipod touch back onto the comupter without loosing the music when it syncs. in order to start rebuilding my music collection?

You should be able to recover the media with the tips in this post from forum regular Zevoneer but I'm not sure what the implications are for your application settings. You can probably transfer your purchases into a newly authorised library, backup the device, recover any other media using third party tools, then restore the device from the backup. That should switch the assocation of the device to the new library but it is not something I've personally tested.
When you get it all working, make a backup!
tt2

I Have an older IPod Mini that was synced to a computer I no longer have. How can I get the song on it to a new Library without losing the songs

I have an older IPod Mini that was synced to a computer I no longer have. How can I move the songs on it to a newer library without losing the songs?

iOS: Unable to update or restore

After iPhoto upgrade i can no longer access the photos stored on my external hard drive, after iPhoto upgrade i can no longer access the photos stored on my external hard drive

I was just about to order a photo book, using photos stored on an external hard drive. I organised the book and pressed 'buy'. IPhotos instructed me that I needed to upgrade and so I went on the ASpp store, bought the upgrade and installed as directed. I then used the iPhoto Library upgrader as directed.
After the iPhoto upgrade I can no longer access the photos stored on my external hard drive. I am able to access the photos stored on my internal hard drive - the remainder (including the photo album) seem to have vanished into thin air.
Any suggestions please?

What format is the external drive?

HT1473 I recently had to replace my hard drive and lost my iTunes library. Now I cannot transfer the library from my iPod to iTunes on the new hard drive (same computer). How can I complete the transfer?

I recently had to replace my hard drive and lost my iTunes library. When I try to transfer the content from my iPod to iTunes on the new hard drive (same computer), it would only let me transfer iTunes store purchases. How can I complete the transfer of all the content on the iPod back onto the computer?

Recover media from iPod
See this post for options on moving your iPod data back to your computer.
tt2

How to recover data from an external hard drive that has lost half of the data I was storing in it

I am using a Lacie external hard drive to store my photos on. Every once in awhile it disappears from my screen. I have been able to bring it back by unplugging and re-plugging from the computer. Then I had to turn it off and on again. Finally, it lost about half the stored photos, and I couldn't recover them. Does anybody have any suggestions as to what I might do to fix this problem?
I'm using an iMac with iOS 10.6.8
The hard drive has 1 TB capacity

You can try these.
Data Recovery Programs
Data Recovery – Best
Data Recovery – Disk Drill
Data Recovery – Data Rescue
Data Recovery – File Salvage
Data Recovery – Stellar Phoenix
Data Recovery - uFlysoft

I moved my itunes media from one external hard drive to another. How do I change the shortcut on my desktop to open to the new external hard drive?

Ok, so i originally installed itunes on an external hard drive (G drive) and not my PC. So my itunes runs completely from my external and that how I like it. Well over time it got full so I bought and moved all my media over to a bigger 2TB external hard drive (D drive). I verified that all the media (music, movies, tv show etc) are all on the new drive and everything points to it. However the itunes shortcut on my desktop still points to the G drive external. If I unplug it and try to open itunes it gives me an error. So I have to keep the G external drive plugged in just to launch itunes and then use my new D external to get the media. How the heck do I change that? I tried moving the itunes.exe file over to the new drive but that didnt work. I want it to run exclusively off the new D external. Please Help Me!!! I am using Win 7 if that helps.

My DeDuper script is designed to help clean up. See this thread for background.
tt2

My itunes library was linked to external hard drive that has died. The only source of music I have left is on my iphone. How do I repopulate itunes now?

My music was stored on a NAS storage device which was the source of my music in itunes. The device suddenly died. I do have back up of the music on another external drive but it isn't up-do-date. The latest music is on my Iphone 5. I have two questions:
1. How do I transfer music from my Iphone 5 to the back up drive or itunes?
2. How do I link the itunes to a new external drive with music from my iphone and the back up drive?

Hey there Natasha1608,
It sounds like you need to transfer your library that is on your phone to your computer, and point iTunes to your other iTunes library. For the first, you can transfer your iTunes Store purchases to your library with the following article:
iTunes Store: Transfer purchases from your iOS device or iPod to a computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1848
Keep this in mind from the above article:
This feature works only for audio, video, and apps that you purchased from the iTunes Store. Any items that you imported from audio CDs or acquired from other sources won't copy from your device to the iTunes library. However, copies of all PDFs and books from your device's iBooks app will transfer to the computer, regardless of whether they were purchased from the iBooks Store. Learn more about transferring media to your iTunes library.
To point iTunes to another library, use this article:
iTunes: How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1589
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Cheers,
Sterling

HT201272 I have lost my complete library which was stored on a external hard drive. How do I download all my library again?

I have due to space constraints on my Mac, placed all my library on an external disc drive. This drive has just dropped out of my system. I have attempted to reboot both Mac and external drive to no avail. My Mac is unable to read the disc!
Is there any way I can retrieve the data from my external drive or do I need to re-download from iTunes.
If so how do I re-download my complete iTunes library to my Mac which is already authorised?
Cheers

What you can re-download will depend upon what country (music can't be re-downloaded in all countries, films and tc shows in less and audiobooks in none) - they will show under the Purchased link under Quick Links on the right-hand side of the iTunes store home page (though if you still have the 'pointers' to them in your library then you will need to delete them first, otherwise they will show as 'downloaded', not with the cloud symbol for re-downloading)

Have trouble using external hard drive that has my iTunes playlist from old mac... want to use external with new macbook pro..

How can I use my external harddrive that has my itunes playlist to my new macbook pro?

I will request that your query be relocated to the iPhoto forum where knowledgeable iPhoto users will be able to assist you.
Ciao.

My iphone 4 was stolen and I now have a replacement and I'm tryin g to get all my music back on that was stored on an external hardrive. It has shown up in Itunes as aprevious library but when I try to sync it up to my new phone it won't do it.

My iphone 4 was stolen and I now have a replacement. Luckily my music was stored on an external hard drive and when I transferred it to itunes it came up as previous library. I've been trying to sync it to my new phone but it's not working. All my apps etc have synced but the music won't. What can I do?

Click: Restoring your iTunes Library backup (from an external drive) here > iTunes: Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
BTW, if you are a resident of the U.S, have iTunes 10.3 or later, and iOS 4.3.3, you can re download your iTunes purchases for free.
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store

ITunes cannot locate purchased music. It was stored on an external hard drive that has crashed. How can I recover the songs?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for