Transfer to External Hard drive gone wrong. Help!!!

I improperly transferred my Itunes, with all my music, to my external hard drive. Not knowing that I had to consolidate my library before hand, I just moved the Itunes application and my Music folder (which contained all of my current music plus a past library from another computer) to the hard drive. When it worked just the same as the Itunes on my internal, I deleted both my original Itunes application and music folder, only to find that after they were deleted, the external Itunes no longer worked as it had before. Now I have all my music and the Itunes application on my external hard drive, and I know there must be an easier way to put them back together then replacing each file one by one. Can someone please help a serious SNAFU? Thanks, at3.

If they're still in two folders (iTunes app and Music) on your external, can you not just copy those two back to the internal drive and expect it to work properly again? It's my understanding that music you wish to be active in iTunes must be on your internal drive.

Similar Messages

External hard drive gone wrong and copied everything to Imac HDD filling it completely

I have had my iMac backed up to an external hard drive for years and randomly the External hard drive is now not readable and it has seemed to copy everything to my imac hard drive filling it completely.
any ideas how to firstly fix the external drive without losing everything on there and second why it would have copied everything to the Imac?
I cant even do a restore from a back up as its all backed up to external drive and its saying its not readable.

If they're still in two folders (iTunes app and Music) on your external, can you not just copy those two back to the internal drive and expect it to work properly again? It's my understanding that music you wish to be active in iTunes must be on your internal drive.

My PC computer was wiped (virus) including itunes. How do I transfer the many playlists and music to the new re-installed itunes?? Ipod is synced to old itunes. I have all original music files on external hard drive. Please help?

My PC computer was wiped (virus) including itunes. How do I transfer the many playlists and music on my ipod to the new re-installed itunes?? Ipod is synced to old itunes. I have all original music files on external hard drive. Please help?
New itunes is trying to wipe the ipod. But have many many playlists (many hours making) which I want to save. Any help would be appreciated.

If you want to just extract the playlists from your iPod, plug it in iTunes. When it appears under devices, right->click on it and choose Export Playlists. Save them to a location such as your desktop and them import them into your library once you have copied and imported all of your music back into it.
See this older post from another forum member Zevoneer covering the different methods and software available to assist you with the task of copying content from your iPod back to your PC and into iTunes.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2452022?start=0&tstart=0
B-rock

Hi Everyone. I have an old Mac Book. I have saved a ton of emails in my inbox 'On My Mac'. There are so many it is slowing down my computer. Where do I find the folder with all the emails so I can cut and paste them to an external hard drive?Pls.help.

Hi Everyone. I have an old Mac Book with software updated to 10.6.8. I have saved a ton of emails in my inbox 'On My Mac'. There are so many it is slowing down my computer. Where do I find the folder with all the emails so I can cut and paste them to an external hard drive? Pls.help. Tks.

Depending on which email client software you use
the files should be in 'your home folder' library, esp.
if you use Mail application.... ~/Library/Mail
Since you don't specify what mail application,
that would most be associated with the file.
I notice there are some items to the right of your post
where it says "more like this' so that may be worth a
look to see if similar issues were answered. Also, the
Help viewer in your system is a searchable database.
Seems that google also brings up fair information, too.
Do you have a complete bootable clone of your entire
Mac system on an externally enclosed hard disk drive?
Good luck & happy computing!

Hi,disc wiped ,OSX10.9 back on ,how do I restore my data from external hard drive ?Any help welcome .

Hi,disc wiped ,OSX10.9 back on ,how do I restore my data from external hard drive ?Any help welcome .

There's Setup Assistant and Migration Assistant. The cleanest way to do it is Setup Assistant, but you only get that option once when you fire up a fresh install of OSX. If you're past that, you could reinstall OSX by booting with Command-R, or you could use Migration Assistant.
Setup/Migration Assistant instructions:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5872

My whole catalogue was nearly lost due to a failed external hard drive. Professional help recovered photos but I can't find my smart tags. Is it possible they were lost on failed drive?

My whole catalogue was nearly lost due to a failed external hard drive. Professional help recovered photos but I can't find my smart tags. Is it possible they were lost on failed drive?

Hi,
In order to recover the tags/albums, etc, you need to have the catalog db. Since currently you only have images, the organization done in the older catalog is probably lost.
Which version of PSE you have and is there any chance, that you have access to catalog location (default is : %programdata%\adobe\elements organizer\catalogs on Windows and ~/library/app support/adobe/organizer/catalogs on MAC) ?
Thanks
Andaleeb

External Hard Drive and iTunes Help

iTunes
Here is my impossible question that many people keep giving me the wrong answer or at least differing answers. This involves "senior advisors" in apple.
Few things to note:
- I'm using iTunes 11.0.1
- I have the newest gen Apple TV
- I have the newest gen AirPort Extreme
- I'm using a western digital (for Mac) external hard drive
I don't consider myself extremely gifted when it comes to using computers but I understand things from trial and error.
I don't want to have any music on my internal SSD (MacBook air). I want to keep all of it on my external.
I downloaded all of my music from transmission and changed file location to my external HD.
I put my file location of iTunes media folder onto my external.
I also have my file location (opt+iTunes) to that media folder when I open iTunes.
All works great and works like it should. I can unplug this external - and my iTunes won't open of course cause my external isn't plugged in. I understand that. When I plug it back in it works again and I'm happy.
Here's where things get difficult.......
I unplugged my external and plugged it into my USB port into the back of my AirPort Extreme. Connected to the external via MacBook Air.
When I opened iTunes all my music was gone.
I quickly unplugged my external from the airport and plugged it back into my MBA and my iTunes library was gone again. Even when I directed it to my external.
I can transfer songs back but that's tiresome every time.
I want to be able to access my big iTunes library wirelessly through my AirPort Extreme and stream movies/music through iTunes/ATV Then when I travel I can unplug it and have that same library connected directly to my MBA and do the same thing.
Do I have to change my library location each time?
Please help!
I would appreciate detailed instructions on what to do?
Everyone gives me wrong answers and many people say this can't be done!
Hope everything was worded properly and makes a bit of sense!

I can understand why you'd want to attempt this if you didn't want to drag your laptop all over your house, porting the external HD along, but do you really need full iTunes access in every room on the laptop? If not—if you basically use your laptop in one area, forget ever seving media from the base station; just connect your external HD to the laptop and turn on Home Sharing for ATV, streaming with AirPlay, etc... I have three computers connected to three externals, all serving via home sharing to three sepaprate ATVs. This works well.
If you really need to hook up this drive to your AEBS via USB, first know that this option could be slow, depending on your drive (7200RPM is better) and connection (USB 3 may make this more acceptable, IDK). My only guess is that this may be possible by creating two libraries on the MBA. One, which you will set to keep your music organized and be the one you use to manage the library (however you want to do that—corded will be faster), and the other that will leave files as they are found. You will have to re-add your media to the secondary library, but it won't faff around with your file locations. This is only a test scenario, as I have no idea if this solution would work. You may find it useful to try out if your other options are exhausted.

Disconnecting external hard drive error - PLS HELP!

im an iMac newbie so i didnt know i was gonna encounter a problem when i manually disconnected my external hard drive from the USB port. when i disconnected it, an error message popped up saying something like the USB device was not properly disconnected..make sure to eject the device... this may cause loss of data, etc. So when i tried to plug in my external hard drive again, a message box popped up saying something like "the device is not compatible with this computer.." so i went and tried to connect the external hard drive on to my PC... as i expected, an error message popped up saying that it is not formatted yet and it was asking me if i want to reformat it..
what should i do??? did i permanently lose all the data in my external hard drive?? is there any way to restore the files?? please help..

As indicated in the previous post, you need to 'eject' the drive before you disconnect the cable or power down the external drive.
to eject:
click on the drive icon then press command-e
right click or control click on the drive icon then select eject
plus other methods
I'd plug in the device & power up the device before starting the mac. This will force a drive check.
With the device connected & power up, then run disk repair.
harddrive > applications > utilities > Disk Utility
On the left you will see a list of devices with the partitions on the device below the device icon. Select the device icon of the external device. Be sure to select the device not the partition on the device.
Select the First Aid tab. See lower right.
run verify
run repair
run verify
what should i do??? did i permanently lose all the data > in my external hard drive?? is there any way to restore > the files?? please help..
If the repair doesn't work you need to try a utility like disk warrior. If that dosn't work, you will need to try a commercial recovery firm.
Robert

Iphoto library stored on external hard drive GONE

My iphoto library has been stored on an external hard drive for a couple of years now, has always worked perfectly until today...I noticed that my desktop photo was gone, so I opened iphoto, and it says that the library cannot be found...at which point I noticed the hard drive is no longer showing up on the desktop of my imac. Also tried connecting it to our macair...also doesn't show up and asks if I want to initialize it...HELP!! I need my pics!

Welcome to the Apple Discussions. Sounds like a hard drive problem rather than an iPhoto one. If the drive won't mount so the library is available iPhoto won't work. So I'd run Disk Utility and see if it can see the drive. If it can then run DU and try to repair the disk. Otherwise you'll have to take the drive in to a service provider to see if they can mount the drive and save the files.

External hard drive gone kaput

I have an old Mac mini (1.42 GH PowerPC G4, Mac OS X 10.4.11) with an 80 gig internal startup HD, and an external 250 gig Firewire HD. For the last couple of days, the external HD has not been getting recognized by the Mac. When I run Disk First Aid, the drive shows up, but the disc itself - "disc2s10" - is greyed out. When I run "Verify Disk", and subsequently "Repair Disk", I get the following response:
"Checking HFS Plus volume
Invalid node structure
Invalid node structure
Catalog file entry not found for extent
Volume check failed
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error"
I've tried everything - power on, power off, disconnecting and reconnecting every cable both on the Mac and on the external HD, but nothing seems to work.
I tried looking at solutions in the Apple Support section, but frankly, I've not had much success and am not even sure whether I did the right things.
Losing the disc would be a disaster - not least because I've painstakingly organized 18,000 songs in my iTunes library, and those songs are all stored on the spoilt HD!
The only other thing I can add is that the disk went bad after I Installed the latest Apple security update a few days ago. I don't know whether that had anything to do with this.
Finally, I've had some problems in the past with this HD - which is housed in a casing that has the same form factor as the Mac mini - in that it sometimes did not mount. But I believe that has been due to some loose internal connections between the disk and the casing. At any rate, that has not been a major problem.
Clearly, since the Mac mini says the disc is unreadable, it can "see" the disc.
Could somebody please help? Thanx.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
When you get this message, does is also show a -9972 error number? If so, the Apple disk utility can't repair the drive. As Boece recommended, Disk Warrior, or similar, program would be your next step, and it can often repair what Disk Utility can't repair. However, if Disk Warrior can't repair it, then you want to look at other software to try and recover the data, as the next step would be an erase and restore. And if that didn't work, then the drive is toast. There are services that can recover the data off a dead drive, however, they are not inexpensive.
Some other thoughts ... can you open the hard drive case and pull the short cable off the hard drive and put it back on? Make a difference? Do you have another mac available to you that you could hook your external hard drive up to? Just to see if there's any difference in accessing it? Is it only a USB connection or can you also connect via firewire?

How do I move my iTunes Music to an external hard drive? Please help!

I bought an external hard drive and moved the iTunes Music folder from my local hard drive to the external hard drive and now the iTunes library appears empty. I moved all my music back into the local hard drive and the libarary is now full full of music again. How can I move all the files to the external drive and have iTunes retrieve the music from there?
Thanks!
Paula

This article tells you the proper way to move your music:
iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder
After a successful move, always connect your external disk, before running iTunes.
Failing to do so will iTunes cause to reset the 'iTunes Music folder location'.
That means your next ripped CDs will be stored on your internal disk.
If that happens, just set the proper location again in the preferences.
Hope this helps.
M
17' iMac fp 800 MHz 768 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.6) Several ext. HD (backup and data)

Moved iTunes Library to External Hard Drive - having trouble - HELP!

I have had quite the ordeal...upgraded my Mac iBook G4 from os 9 to os x 10 Tiger.
Bought an external hard drive to back up my 30 GB of music
Now...my computer won't function because it's out of hard disk space.
I moved my iTunes library to the external hard drive. Everything seems to be jim dandy...except that when I go to play a music file...the computer does not recognize the file.
I have to locate, and re-direct the path for each song to the new file location. SONG BY SONG!
Is there any way to do this globally for the entire library???
What else should I do to ensure I free up hard drive space, without jeopordizing my precious music files?
Thank you!!!

With iTunes 7.x you can transfer iTS purchases from the ipod back into iTunes.
To prevent your iPod from syncing - hold down the 'option' and  keys at the same time when plugging in your iPod. Keep the keys held down until the iPod show up in iTunes.
MJ

HT5958 We are 4 min in to editing a video on final cut pro. now my computer is freezing up. I have heard that this is a glitch from downloading. (beyond frustrated) is this from working from 2 external hard drives? PLEASE HELP! =)

PLEASE HELP. =)
we are about 4 minutes into editing a video for the first time on final cut pro x 10.1. everything was going very smoothly, but then it started freezing up. I had to do a hard reset and took it into the computer store that actually installed final cut for us. they suggested that our mac actually is not capable of keeping up with final cut. (I FIND THIS HARD TO BELIEVE!!) We work on an IMAC 2.66 ghz intel core 2 duo. 8 gb 1067 mhz ddr3. software os x 10.9.1 (hopefully that info will help for your suggestions) Because we have soooooooooooo many hours of high def video, we are working off of two external hard drives.... is this a problem?? or do we really need to upgrade our computer?????

Like Russ said, check Activity Monitor and see what else is running and turn off any Applications that aren't needed.
Turn off wi-fi or disconnect the wire that goes to the Internet
Turn off Background Rendering (if you see an orange line on the top of the time line that moves along and gets shorter while you're not doing anything that is a good sign that Background Rendering is running.
I haven't used 10.1 yest but on the previous version there was a small circle approximately in the middle of the screen, about 1/2-inch or 1 cm in diameter, and it would have a number inside. The number is the percent complete of what is hapening. When it is Rendering the percentage will be shown.
Basically, you probably need to free up resources.
For what it is worth, my previous Mac Pro was a 1,1 2.66 machine, also with 8GB of, I think, 667 memory, and it would process FCPX 10.0.9 okay. It did have an upgraded video card, though.

Hard drive failed on windows computer. all data lost. backed up most itunes on an older model my passport ultra external hard drive. How do I transfer from external hard drive to new computer hard drive?

The hard drive on my windows computer failed and the data is not retrievalbe.
I had a new hard drive installed.
I had backed up on a older model my passport ultra external hard drive my itunes up to about a year ago.
How can I move the back up extenal drive Itunes data onto my new hard drive- will it work on itunes?
===========
Meanwhile my ipod has all my music and podcasts up till a month ago. What will I lose if I put my external drive music back on?

Hi Perilman,
Welcome to the Apple Support Communities! I understand that all of your iTunes media is on an external hard drive and you would like to move that media onto your new Windows computer hard drive. The following article has step by step instructions for this specifically. Part 5 in the External drive section is probably what is going to be most relevant to you.
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4527
Part 5: Copy music to your new computer
To copy all your music files (including the library file that holds all your playlists and other settings) to your new computer:
I hope this helps,
-Joe

Data transfer to external hard drive

I have an iMac running OS X 10.9.2. The problem I'm having is that my hard drive is full - mostly due to HD home videos that I have saved to iMovie. I need to move them to an external hard drive in order to free up some room. I really would like to put them (2 copies of the same videos) on 2 separate hard drives, so that I will have a back-up in case one fails. I am not really that mac savvy - so I was wondering if someone could tell me the best/easiest way to go about doing this. Where I get hung up is if I move it to one drive, then it's no longer on the mac - so how do I put a copy on a second drive?
Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!
Thanks!

You are copying a file from one drive to another, not moving it. The file will still be on the Mac from which you copied it.
Select all the movies you wish to copy. Then drag your selection to a folder on one of the backup drives. Now drag that same selection to the second backup drive. When the copying is completed you will have two backups. You can now delete the selection from the startup drive.
Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive
1. See Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks' Storage Display.
2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
4. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
5. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
6. See The Storage Display.
You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.
You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
Try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.8 or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

Transfer to External Hard drive gone wrong. Help!!!

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for