After hard drive replacement, iTunes points to wrong drive

I have my iTunes media on an external drive, and the drive failed. Luckily I had a backup, and I also had a spare drive to replace the bad one with. So I set up the replacement drive on my Mac Mini, naming it the same as the old drive (iTunes Library). I then copied the data from the backup onto the replacement drive. I then connected the replacement drive to the Mac, and started up iTunes. From the looks of everything, it looked like all was good, all of my Music, Movies, etc. was there. So yesterday I happen to look at the path for one of my Music files, and I see that now iTunes is pointing to my iTunes Backup drive, named "iTunes Backup", instead of my regular iTunes drive, named "iTunes Library".
I had thought that iTunes would still know that the replacement drive, named the same as the old one, would still point to it, but apparently I was wrong. I even went to "Preferences" and pointed the Media location to the replacement drive, not the backup.
So, my question is: How can I get iTunes to point to the right drive? Do I have to open iTunes with the "Option" key and have it point to the replacement drive? Is there something else?
At least I had a backup, and both replacement and backup drives seem ok...
HELP!!

Well, it is complicated in the way your public library does things is complicated. iTunes keeps a catalog of media files and assumes from that catalog that the file exists where it was noted to exist when it was added to the library. Just as with my public library, there can be off-site storage too, but they have to make sure somebody hasn't moved their books without telling them or they are in a mess. As I said earlier, I have no idea how your catalog on the internal drive got into its head to use the files on the backup drive. That goes completely contrary to how iTunes has ever operated from all the topics I have seen on this site for 10+ years, unless there was something else you did that I am not hearing. No matter, if this is truly the scenario. What I am having you do is deliberately break all the links to the files on the backup drive and hopefully rebuild links to the files on the new library drive. Then you will be using the other document to change the location of the rest of your non-media library files so it is all together on the library drive for easier moving in future. I guess you could do it in either order. The thing is, the library file (iTunes library.itl which ties all iTunes together) is telling you (according to what you report) that when you request track XYZ in iTunes it should be going to the backup drive and play file xyz, but you want it to go to the library drive and use the file there. If you simply copy the library file to your library drive it will still be trying to find the music file on the backup drive. The only ways to change the designation are to either breaks the links and take advantage of iTunes' re-linking tool, or to use the editable .xml version of the library file to hand-edit the file paths and use that file to rebuild the library file with come concurrent loss of data that is only in the .itl version.
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

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After Drive Replacement, iTunes Points To Wrong Folder Even After Adjusting Settings

I moved my music to a new hard drive. I then adjusted settings within iTunes to "point" to the folder on the new drive. The folder name is identical as are all the files within it. I did this a few months back and had no issues once iTunes "located" my files. All files played, playlists remained intact. This time however only a small portion of my files successfully "located" and the remaining 75% are unplayable. When "shown in finder", the unplayable tracks point to a completely random folder within my mail folder of obviously non-music files. I've been searching for weeks how to fix this to no avail. I definitely do not want to lose my playlists, play counts, etc. so starting from scratch with iTunes is not an option for me. Please advise how to fix this very odd issue!
iMac 3.4 Ghz i7
OSX 10.8.5
iTunes 12.0.1.26 (just updated)

To resolve this we will need details. I don't know exactly what is where. Even though it "worked last time" I see people post with that and almost invariably there is something different in the scenario this time.
The iTunes application alone has no idea where media files are. You could drag all the media folders you like to the Media folder and it won't know. You could "point" iTunes to that folder in preferences and it still will never look there. iTunes knows where files are because as you add them to iTunes it puts them in the Media folder and makes a note in that .itl file where the files are located. When you try to play a track iTunes looks up in the .itl file which media file it should try to play when you request the track and goes to that location to play the file. If there file isn't there you get ! You have to mend the links one by one, or iTunes might try, based on you repairing links. to repair other links, but it doesn't usually work that way and is only partly successful at times (as we have already discussed). If you have ever walked into a store and see an empty shelf but their web site says they have 3 in stock and the sales person says all their stock is out on the shelf, iTunes is like that.
Here's a bunch of links on how iTunes works. As you can see, an entire library is a whole bunch of files and support folders working in concert and when they get split up iTunes starts misbehaving.
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
iTunes 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847 - plus supplemental information about organizing to new structure https://discussions.apple.com/message/26404702#26404702
Image of folder structure and explanation of different iTunes versions (turingtest2 post) - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7392 and making an iTunes library portable.

My ipod shuffle (4th gen) don't works after hard reset with itunes

My ipod shuffle (4th gen) don't works after hard reset with itunes, it don't reads too like USB by Windows.
Before that i've seen error (-50) in iTunes, so i reset ipod.
I've read all tips on this site, but nothing helps me.

No, USB works good. I've tried reset on my friend's PC, and it saw my ipod and reset was done. But when i tried to load music, it wrote me, that i've installed incorrect software.

Hard Drive Replaced - ITunes now skips?

Hi everyone!
I posted my saga regarding my iMac G5 and our hard drive problems here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=783309&start=0&tstart=0
NOW - a week after having my hard drive replaced by Apple and finally getting all my settings and programs reloaded - all of a sudden my iTunes has starting to skip during playback like I'm stressing the processor when I do anything like follow an internet link, open/close Firefox or open any other program with iTunes playing.
I never had any issues like this before I had a new hard drive installed...
Ideas? Anyone?
2.1GHz PowerPC 20-inch iMac G5 w/iSight, 1.5GB RAM, 250 GB Mac OS X (10.4.8) 13" MacBook, 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo, 60GB

You might want to check with "Activity Monitor" (in your utilities folder) to see if there is something either "hogging" processor time or making heavy use of the HD, melzieb.
Once Activity Monitor has started open up the identically named "Activity Monitor" window, from the windows menu (if it is not opened automatically) , select "active processes" in the drop down box at the top of the window.
Click on the "CPU%" button in the bottom of the window to see a graph CPU activity etc.
One likely culprit is a process called "mdimport". This is directly associated with spotlight indexing proces, consumes both CPU and HD time, and is a common cause of slowdowns after HD replacement until Spotlight indexing has been completed etc.
Another possibility may be a "hung up" printer - Look for printmonitor or "printjobmanager" processes, or the like.
Cheers
Rod

Restoring my computer after hard disk replacement

My iMac hard disks were corrupt and new hard disks were installed today. I now need to restore my computer. The computer is currently going through the process of installing OSX mountain Lion 10.8 and I have a Time machine backup that I want to then import from my time capsule.
My time capsule has the back up from my old hard disks which operated on the latest version of OSX 10.9 Mavericks. Should I upgrade the iMac to 10.9 mavericks before using migration assistant it import the time machine backup, or will it be okay to simply start the migration assistant from within 10.8?
I am pretty confused and nervous - the apple support phone service told me to simply restore the time machine backup from disk utility, but this failed and I subsequently read that this was wrong advice as the backup was from a different computer(ie my old hard disks). I am now desperate to get my computer back working again after a nightmare few weeks of logic board replacement and now hard disk replacement.
Any advice would be appreciated.

It would not be a good idea to restore from the time machine backup, because if your HD was corrupted before it was replaced, then the backups are probably corrupted too. If you try to restore by migrating from that backup, you'll just put corrupted files on your new HD.
The best thing to do would be to:
finish the ML installation
download the Mavericks installer and install Mavericks.
figure out what document files you want to save that are on your TM backup, and copy them to your new HD (not by migration).
reformat (erase) the TM hard drive
reinstall your apps from scratch
once you have everything up and running, then make a new TM backup.
I installed a new HD in my Macbook Pro last year, and I did a clean install like this. It does take a bit more effort but it's worth it. Seems to work better, faster, cleaner, without any problems.
How did your Mac get "corrupted"? This is often due to bad/old/incompatible software, particularly junk like MacKeeper or CleanMyMac, or other worthless, overpriced, completely unnecessary "cleaning" or "maintenance" or "optimizing" applications garbage. If you have anything like this on your Mac, don't even think about reinstalling it.
One thing that I found useful after a few "clean installs" with my Macs was to make a list first of everything that you want to reinstall on your mac, including passwords, essential apps, printer drivers, documents, and the like. Once you start doing the reinstalls it can get confusing so having a list first can keep you on track.

How do I restore my 27" mid-2011 iMac EXACTLY the way it was after hard disk replacement?

Hi all.
Recently received an email from Apple saying that the 1TB Seagate hard drive in my 27" mid-2011 iMac is apt to fail anytime. Apparently they used some bad hard drives in the mid-2011 27" iMacs which are problematic so they're offering me a free replacement to a brand new hard drive. I'll be sending in my iMac for the replacement sometime in the next few days.
In preparation for it, I've backed up my entire system using Time Machine into an external harddrive. The backup is up to date & includes all system files. I've also made a Lion install disk on an 8GB USB flash/pen drive using Carbon Copy Cloner.
My question is: When I get my iMac back after the hard disk replacement, will I be able to restore my iMac to EXACTLY the way it was before the replacement using the Time Machine backup & the Lion install disk that I've prepared? When I mean EXACTLY, I do mean EXACTLY, e.g I don't have to re-install all the programs I have, my settings for the programs I have will stay intact, everything is where it should be etc...i.e EXACTLY the way my iMac is right now.
If yes, how do I do it? I've read Pondini's guide: http://pondini.org/TM/14.html
However it is less than clear on certain points, e.g in my case, which one do I have to use to restore my system to the way it was...the Time Machine backups I have on the external HDD or the Lion install disk that I made using Carbon Copy Cloner? And how do I go about doing the restore?
I'd appreciate any & all help given. Thanks in advance!

daniirwan wrote:
baltwo: Thanks for your input! I didn't think of wiping the old HDD before sending it in for the replacement..all those sensitive user data! One question: What's a FWHD?
Already answered. Just note that FW is much faster than USB. See http://help.bombich.com/kb/troubleshooting/how-long-should-the-clone-or-backup-t ake for details.
I already have CCC installed so I'll probably try it out. Are the steps outline here the one that I should do to restore the CCC clone when I get my Mac with the new HDD back? See: http://help.bombich.com/kb/overview/restoring-data-from-your-backup#full_volume_ restore
Yes.
Another question: while I'm booted on the backup/clone, and just after I've wiped the old HDD, how do I reinstall the OS to create a generic user account? Will I have to use a Lion install USB disk?
No. IIRC (if I remember correctly), you can either use a saved Lion installer (hopefully it exists on your backup/clone) or use the Recovery HD. If you have the USB stick w/Lion installer on it, use that.

Trying to install iTunes, going to wrong drive and won't insall

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Sidebar favourites start to point at wrong drive randomly and I have no idea why?

I have 3 firewire drives connected to my iMac, "Media Drive", "Media Drive Mirror" and "Media Drive Mirror 2". Media Drive is my primary work drive and the other two are mirrored backups. I have links to my working directories on the primary drive in the my Sidebar Favorites and every few days they start to point at the mirrored backup drive instead. Because I use Carbon Copy Cloner to do a nightly backup mirroring the two cloned drives, it does not check to see if newer files are on the backup drives. This has caused me to lose valuable work because there have been two occasions when I was unknowingly saving to one of the cloned backup drives instead of the primary work drive. When Carbon Copy Cloner ran that night, it deleted my new files because they were not present on the primary drive. Why is the OS suddenly and randomly pointing itself to the backup drives? I think it may happen after a computer restart, but I'm pretty certain it has happened without a restart as well because I don't generally need to reboot my iMac very often and I only put it to sleep at night not powered off.
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I have 3 firewire drives connected to my iMac, "Media Drive", "Media Drive Mirror" and "Media Drive Mirror 2". Media Drive is my primary work drive and the other two are mirrored backups. I have links to my working directories on the primary drive in the my Sidebar Favorites and every few days they start to point at the mirrored backup drive instead. Because I use Carbon Copy Cloner to do a nightly backup mirroring the two cloned drives, it does not check to see if newer files are on the backup drives. This has caused me to lose valuable work because there have been two occasions when I was unknowingly saving to one of the cloned backup drives instead of the primary work drive. When Carbon Copy Cloner ran that night, it deleted my new files because they were not present on the primary drive. Why is the OS suddenly and randomly pointing itself to the backup drives? I think it may happen after a computer restart, but I'm pretty certain it has happened without a restart as well because I don't generally need to reboot my iMac very often and I only put it to sleep at night not powered off.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated?

How to connect to iTunes match after hard rive replacement

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thanks michael thats what i did and eventually match option came up. wasnt used to new itunes layout, what a pain! anyway do you know how to download all songs in icloud to computer all in one go rather than having to do one at a time? thanks

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Message was edited by: James Campbell

I am experiencing the same problem and after restoring from backup I either still have some wrong pointers or the problem is returning.
One way to find out which tracks are pointing to random files is to sync your whole music library either in one go if it's small enough or in parts to an iphone or ipod. You will then get a dialog with all the files that won't play on the device.
How do I relink them manually? Can't work it out.

Slow scroll after hard disk replacement

Hi,
I have a T60 (2613 CTO) which I bought in Dec. 2006.
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Do not hurry with EFI firmware. It is not cler whether, after replacing disk, you installed the system or not. Did you insert the install DVD (the first out of two shipped with your 2007 mac), pressed C after chime (do you hear the chime?), and boot from DVD? Can you boot from 1st install DVD? If you cannot boot, the problem may be elsewhere, give details.

ITunes points to wrong song in cloud

Seems to only happen with songs I have deleted off my harddrive and only showing "in the cloud". Several songs point to the wrong song and artist. Anyone else esperiencing this?

if you try to play a song does the wrong song play?
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Vista 64-bit Won't Update after Hard Drive Replacement

My daughter has a Satellite L305-S5945 laptop (Model Number: PSLB8U-107071). Running Vista 64-bit SP1. She got a message that Windows detected a problem with the hard drive. After I ran the usual virus scans (no threats or malware detected) and chkdsk route, we were still getting the message. I did a reformat and Windows re-install and still got the message. The old drive was a Toshiba MK1655GSX.
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Satellite L305-S5945
Windows Update remained red and informed that Windows could not update. Then it gave me a error code: 8024A000. It will not check to see if I need updates. ... Other than the updates, Vista is working fine on the new drive.
Can you give us more details about that situation, Mike? A picture would help. You can attach a small one by adding the .txt extension to the file name as I have done here.
In the meantime, try resetting Windows Update.
How do I reset Windows Update components?
-Jerry
Attachments:
WindowsUpdate.jpg.txt ‏76 KB

ITunes installed on a new drive with music on an old drive: how to keep the music data?

I had iTunes installed on my old HDD with all my music on it. It was the drive C:\
I just installed a new SSD (now the C:\ drive) in my computer. I also installed iTunes on it. I want to leave my music on my old HDD (now the G:\ drive). I can scan with iTunes for my music on my old G:\ drive, but that means I won't have the star ratings nor the play count...
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Is there a way to edit the iTunes_library.xml file to change the path of every song in it (from C:\ to G:\) since this seems to be the issue? Or how could I keep my music on my G:\ drive and itunes on my C:\ drive while keeping my music data?
Thank you!
Specs:
Windows 7 sp1
SSD: Plextor M5P 256G

Hello papapavvv,
Thank you for providing so much information about what is going on. It sounds like you have your iTunes Library on your G:\ drive, but it sounds like iTunes is not opening iTunes Library.itl file on the external drive. Follow these steps to point iTunes to your G:\ drive:
Steps to create or choose a different iTunes Library file
If iTunes is running, quit iTunes.
If you are using Windows, hold down the Shift key and from the Start menu and choose All Programs > iTunes > iTunes.
You should see the following screen:
Additional information
If you do not see the screen above, then you did not hold the correct key at the correct time. You may want to try again. Note that if you pinned iTunes to the Start menu programs, and open it that way, it may not work.
Once you select "Choose Library," you will need to navigate to the iTunes Library.itl file on your new external drive.
You can find the full article here:
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.
Best,
Sheila M.

After replacing my hard drive, my iTunes won't transfer music to and from my iPhone 5?

Hi,
I recently got my hard drive replaced after it died on me. I went to transfer songs onto my computer but it said I needed to update both my iTunes and my iPhone first. So I have and it says that it synced up all ok, but none of the songs got transferred. Simply dragging music over from my iPhone to iTunes didn't work so I manually tried to sync the music, but it came up with the message that in order to do this I'd have to erase all my music from my iPhone to sync with iTunes, when I would rather it be the other way around.
From reading forums, I understand that you are only allowed to sync the iPhone with one computer only and I have come to the conclusion that my iPhone still thinks it's paired with the iTunes that's on the broken hard drive and therefore thinks I'm trying to sync with another computer. However, I'm still using the same apple ID so I don't understand how that can be possible, so I am quite confused really.
All I want is to have all my old songs back in my iTunes. The only other thing I can think of is the Yosemite upgrade. I am not convinced on the upgrade since there are mixed posts about it and the only good comments are about its looks when I'm more concerned about its practicality. Could this be the problem with my iTunes? Any help would be very much appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

Unfortunately, what you have described is normal with iTunes and iOS devices when changing Macs or (and as you discovered) hard drives. I think you get around this problem though if you rebuild your Mac from a Time Machine backup.
Question: how much of your music is ripped from CDs or downloaded or purchased from iTunes?
I would imagine you are going to have to erase your phone, but there are 2 possible options as I would see it:
Copy the music from an old Time Machine backup. Even if Time Machine is based on your old system, as long as it’s not encrypted, an Administrator account should still be able to access the TM folder (perhaps with some tweaks to folder permissions).
Get hold of a dedicated piece of software for copying music off your iPhone. Google will present you a few options, although be careful: music on your phone is not stored in a filename friendly way, so you will no way of easily identifying the song or getting iTunes to recognise it either. You probably want software that builds filenames and copies the metadata with it, although these aren’t generally free.
Don’t forget that any purchased songs you can re-download off iTunes.

After hard drive replacement, iTunes points to wrong drive

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