Itunes doesn't see library on external hard drive

I've been using itunes on my laptop (dell inspiron 2200) with an external hard drive to store my music files.
About a week ago, suddenly, itunes won't "see" the music there. Both my music and my playlists are blank.
I can "see" the external hard drive through "my computer" and my itunes preferences still say to look there for my music, but no go.
Help

If your pluging your hard dive in via USB you may have the same issue I have once and while with my external dive I put all my iTune files in. My hard drive has to USB plugs to get enough power to the hard drive. If I use only one and on battery power iTunes does not see it. But you said you can see it via my computer so you may have to check the place iTunes is putting your files again. In iTunes go to the edit tab on the top of the iTunes window pan down to Prefernces then go to the Advanced tab and at the top make sure your iTunes Music File Location is to your external Hard dive file you have for iTunes.

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ITunes won't show library on external hard drive

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This is relevant portion of the support document with a bit of editing for clarity.
If iTunes is running, quit iTunes.
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If iTunes opens normally, close it and try again.
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ITunes Doesn't Delete Movies From External Hard Drive

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When you delete an item from your iTunes library, iTunes will give you the option to delete the file too, but *only for items that are located in your iTunes Media folder.* So, assuming your iTunes Media folder is on your local drive, what you are seeing is the correct behavior.
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I have iTunes set to launch at startup. I just moved my iTunes library to an external hard drive, but now when the computer boots it launches iTunes before the external hard drive can mount. This causes an error message requiring human input.
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i had the same problem before i got my new computer i didn't have the room to keep the files on my hard drive so i just moved the music over not the library file its named iTunes library and that is the thing that stores all the library info
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ITunes can't locate library on external hard-drive

I have had my iTunes library in a folder on an external E hard drive for some time, and it worked fine.
After I downloaded the latest version of iTunes - in response to a prompt from Apple - it now can't locate any of the tracks. The library is still displayed in full in the iTunes screen, but each track has an exclamation mark next to it, and if I try to play a track, iTunes tells me I have to locate it manually. If I locate a track manually, it plays, but that's obviously not ideal. Also, it won't sync my iPod, but just tells me that the named tracks can't be found.
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Going via Edit-Preferences-Advanced, the `iTunes media folder location' is set as the folder in my E-drive which contains my music library. I had understood that that was all I needed to do in order to enable iTunes to find my library, but I guess there must be another step I've missed.
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Have you assigned E: to the exHD permanently? Because Windows can change USB drive letters on you, if you don't assign them.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844
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Help managing iTunes library on external hard drive

I moved my iTunes library to a WD Mybook Live in order to free up disk space on my main computer. But in the process of transferring the library to the external hard drive, I accidentally made duplicates of each song. I want to delete the extra songs, but the "Show Duplicate Items" command isn't working when I try to use it on the library on my external hard drive. (That command works fine for songs stored on the local hard drive of the computer, but the command is "dimmed" and not clickable when I try to use it for the library on the external hard hard drive.) Also, I notice that I cannot use iTunes to delete songs on the external hard drive. (However, I *can* delete songs on the external hard drive manually by using Windows Explorer.) So I'm puzzled. How can I use the "Show Duplicate Items" command to help me delete thousands of duplicate songs on my external hard drive? Does iTunes disallow certain kinds of access to shared libraries? Why would iTunes not let me delete these songs when I can go into Windows Explorer and delete them. Help! Thanks. (I'm running iTunes 11.1)

As long as you don't have an existing library that is synced with a device or holds oodles of carefully crafted playlists, ratings etc. then...
Hold down shift as you start iTunes. You should get an option to choose or create a library. Click create, browse to root of the external drive and click save so that your library is say X:\iTunes where X: is the letter of your external drive. All new content downloaded to the library will stay on the external drive.
See this user tip for a backup strategy.
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Try this...
*Fast backup for iTunes library (Windows Only)*
Grab SyncToy 2.0, a free tool from MS. Use it to create a backup copy of your iTunes library & any other media folders onto another hard drive or network share. After making the initial backup copy use SyncToy to periodically synchronise the backup copy with your library and only the changed files will be copied saving lots of time.
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Erasing all music from iTunes and starting over from an external hard drive

Hello,
I tried moving all my media to an external hard drive to make room on my MacBook Pro and just be able to run the media (ie music movies etc) from the external hard drive when it was connected.
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1st I backed up Finder > music > iTunes > iTunesMedia folder to two seperate external hard drives just in case.
2nd I think (this was back in March 2013) I decided to cut/delete the folder Automatically Add to iTunes and moved it to one of my external hard drives (this folder for some reason contained mostly everythiing that was in the iTunes Media folder).
3rd I finally decided to erase content from iTunes Media Folder
4th I deleted the iTunes Media folder because I felt it was stupid to have a "iTunes Media folder" and "iTunes Music Folder" in the same place but not actually have anything in the iTunes Music folder (probably really stupid of me in retrospect)
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6th I believe I changed the location of "iTunes Media folder location" in the Advanced area under Preferences thinking this should be pointing to my external drive
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So I checked Finder to see if there were 3 copies of everything (by the way at this point I stopped connecting my external hard drive for the sake of making more copies on iTunes) but there wasn't??? So I tried to go through Option+View > Show Exact Duplicate Copies and delete all but one of the items. When I would delete them and it asked if I wanted to move them to my Trash Bin I clicked yes and all the 2nd and 3rd copies were gone!!! Yeah, so when I played those songs/movies that remained they would play!!!!!
Than I realized that my Internal Hard Drive was almost full and went looking around for things I could delete to help make my MacBook run better, and realized that my Trash had a large amount of data in it and that emptying it would significantly reduce space on my Internal Hard Drive, but when I went back to iTunes and selected music or movies to play it placed the infamous "!" next to that track or movie and it could not locate those items anymore?
Long long long story short hopefully, can anyone help me set up iTunes so that it only can play content/media off of my external drive and not take up space on my internal hard drive? Is this even possible to do that or will always start to copy those files from the external hard drive back onto the internal hard drive? and second is there anyway to use the Apple router external hard drive to use as the source for all my media?
PS I am running Mac OS X Lion version 10.7.5 and iTunes 11.1.3 (8) 64-bit

2012EVOL wrote:
Hello,
I tried moving all my media to an external hard drive to make room on my MacBook Pro and just be able to run the media (ie music movies etc) from the external hard drive when it was connected.
Quit iTunes.
Copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder to the external. Don't only copy the iTunes media folder.
Hold Option, launch iTunes, select Choose library... and select the iTunes folder on the external.
This is all you need to do.
Everything for iTunes (except the application) is on the external.
2nd I think (this was back in March 2013) I decided to cut/delete the folder Automatically Add to iTunes and moved it to one of my external hard drives (this folder for some reason contained mostly everythiing that was in the iTunes Media folder).
Make a shortcut to this folder on your desktop.
Nothing should be in this folder. When you put a file here, it will get moved by iTunes and added to the library.
The reason it had files in it is because you moved it.

Problems Moving I-Tunes Library to External Hard Drive

I've ran out of disk space on my internal hard drive so have bought an external hard drive and want to move my iTubes database and music to the new drive and free up my internal hard drive. I have music that has been ripped from my CDs in iTunes, plus I have loaded into iTunes other music I had lying around elsewhere on my internal hard drive. I changed the location of the iTunes database to the new drive and then selected Consolidate Library. It then starts copying the files elsewhere on my internal hard drive and then errors before it gets around to copying the rest of the files in the iTunes library ie. none of the music that I have imported directly into iTunes has copied across to the external hard drive, only a large number of the other music files I had on the drive before I installed iTunes. Any ideas how I either (a) find the offending file(s) and remove them, or (b) get around this problem and continue copying everything I possibly can without erroring out.
thanks in advance
Andy

Ick, that message usually shows up while trying to sync an iPod. Well, iTunes thinks one of the files is corrupt and doesn't tell you which one, lovely, isn't it?
The only thing I can think of is what I had to do when I got an error message from the consolidate command. I kept watching the folder it was consolidating to using Windows Explorer, look at the column Date Modified or Date Added. The last file in there is the last file iTunes was able to copy with success.
Now, you need to go hunt for the next file, the file that made it error in iTunes. The consolidate command copies files in the order they were added to your library.
iTunes menu > View Options > Date Added must be checked off.
Now click twice on the Date Added column so iTunes will sort by Date Added, oldest files at the top. Find the file AFTER the last successful song. Either delete it from the iTunes libary list (not your hard drive), or rename it (which is waht I did - I had to rename a whoel album it was freaking on).
Hope that makes sense. It took me hours to consolidate my 200G+ library.
Some people just give up and create a new library with no playcounts or ratings, but I persevered; perhaps you will, too.

Ooops...I manually moved iTunes music folder to my new external hard drive

So I thought I was smart and manually moved my iTunes music folder to my new external hard drive. I've changed the location in Preferences but can't locate my music through iTunes. What do I do now? My library is on my external hard drive, but I read I should have done this through iTunes. Any advice?

Is it still possible for you to temporarily return the iTunes Music folder to its original location?
If so you should be able to see your music in iTunes again and then follow the instructions in this article in the Apple Knowledge Base.

Need help using music library on external hard drive

Here is my scenario. I am hoping some one can help me as I have been having a heck of time trying to figure this out. I am what you would call newbie to Mac(I just purchased macBook) so bear with me).
I have a iTunes library on an external hard drive that was created using Windows PC machine. I now would like to use the same library on my Mac. How can I get the Mac to connect to the iTunes Music on the external hard drive?
This is what I have done so far. I have been able to network the Mac with my current network so it does see the external hard drive.
BTW, I would like to achieve this without having iTunes open on Windows machine. I know about the sharing option in iTunes but I have discovered that it only works if I have iTunes open on the Windows machine. This may not always be the case so this is why i am hoping their is an alternative to get the mac to connect to the library on the external hard drive.
I look forward to help on this one.
...Bruce

Maybe I did not explain myself clearly. All I want to do is be able to listen to the music in my itunes library on external hard drive on my new MacBook. I am thinking all I will have to do is create the itunes database file on my Mac using the music in my library(on external HD).

ITunes can't "see" music on ext. hard drive....have to manually find

I have had my music/movie library (approx. 50gb) stored on an external hard drive and have been managing the music with iTunes for my iPod.
Now, for some reason, approx. 75% of my library has an exclamation point next to the song name on iTunes indicating that the song cannot be located.
Is there an easier way that manually searching file by file to show iTunes where these songs are located on the ext. hard drive?????
This would take hours and hours.
I am somewhat desperate and am hopeful that anyone with advice can't respond.
Thank you.

I don't know if you've already found a solution to this problem but this tends to happen to me when I forget to plug in the external hard drive before I open iTunes. What happens is that iTunes automatically creates a new iTunes Music folder in the iTunes folder of your Music folder (if you follow my drift). iTunes then looks for your music there;but it's not there because it's on your external drive. It then puts an exclamation mark against any music file that it can't find there. If you go to iTunes-preferences-advanced,click change,and change the iTunes Music folder location back to the folder on your external hard drive,or,if no folder,the hard drive itself,where the physical files are kept then iTunes should update its library and find them. If,of course,you've imported files while the iTunes Music folder is back in it's default position,they will have to be reimported.Make sure 'Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library' is ticked,drag them out of the default folder to the desktop,double click,iTunes will reimport them to the external hard drive.Trash the files from the desktop when they've been copied over. Of course,there may be a simpler way of doing this but it works for me. Hope this helps.

Itunes doesn't see library on external hard drive

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