Backing Up Library onto external hardrive

Well I got a 16 GB iPod touch and I'm running out of hard drive space (32GB out of 40GB). Is it possible to relocate the folder to an external hardrive

Quit iTunes.
Drag the *iTunes folder* (My Documents/My Music/iTunes) to the external drive.
Drag My Documents/My Music/iTunes to the trash but do NOT empty it yet.
Start iTunes holding the Shift key.
Select *Choose existing library* & select the *iTunes library file* in the folder you copied onto the external.
Once you verify it works, empty the trash.

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Backed up library onto external hd - want to get music bk into itunes lib - moved 2 files library.itl and library.xml but reverts bk to 5kb and 11kb (ie. no music)

I backed up library onto external drive. (itunes directory - with Album artwork, itunes music directory, and xml/itl files)
Now I am trying to upload music back to a new Windows XP computer - I have new itunes version.
First I moved/copied the itunes directory whole to the new computer - then opened itunes and the library.itl and library.xml reverted to 5 and 11kb
Then tried just moving those two files - still nothing
Help - as I have over 28MB of music I am trying to recover.
Thanks,

The "missing file" thing happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, or that the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout,or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to get info, then cancel when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. I can provide a step by step guide if you give me the two paths.
Alternatively, as long as you can find a location holding the missing files, then you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes.
tt2

Backing up iPhoto 08 library onto External Seagate

I've searched past forums and didn't find an answer so maybe someone can help.
All of my photos are stored in my iPhoto library. I back them up onto a Seagate external drive. Typically I back up by plugging in the external then going to Macintosh HD, to Places, to "carolyn" (that's me) to the "Pictures" folder to "My Pictures" selecting all and dragging them over.
I just noticed that under "My pictures" the events/folders go from Feb 2003 to Aug 2008. I have events each month from Aug 2008 to today when I'm in iPhoto...why aren't they showing up here? Is there a limit to the storage? Currently, my iPhoto library has 125 events and 11,000+ photos (about 28 GBs).
Soooo, I'm looking for the best way to backup my photos and still be able to access them easily.
Sorry, if this is a simple question. Please help! Thanks!!!!
caro

to backup manually like you are doing you simply drag your iPhoto library intact as a single entity from your boot drive to your backup drive that is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled)
From what you describe that should be happening
Why do you think that only part of the photos are there?
BTW - iPhoto '08 is designed for up to 250,000 photos so 11,000 is not an issue - many people here have much larger libraries
As to backup one way is manually
Another way is using a backup program (Apple's backup that comes with MobileMe is one possible solution)
Another way is using a clone - I do that daily using SuperDuper
Another way is TimeMachine - I also use TM
LN
LN

Backup Library using external hardrive?!

I understand that I can use a DVD or CD to backup my Library but is there an easier way to back up my library using an external hardrive other than individually moving all 2000 of my mp3s??

If you go into the My Music folder, there will be an iTunes folder. Inside that folder is all of the information for playlists, all of the songs, etc. You can copy and paste that if you want.
If you're looking to run all of the songs in iTunes off of the external HD, go to Edit>Preferences>Advanced, and change the iTunes music folder to a folder on the external HD. Now, go along the top of iTunes and choose Advanced>Consolidate library. That will copy everything to the external HD, and will make iTunes run off of the external HD. I don't usually recommend this option if you're just wanting to back up your content.

Backing up library to external drive rather than CD's??

Hi, does anyone know if you can perform the back up/incremental back up function in iTunes to an external hardrive (as opposed to a DVD or CD)?
I tend to back up everything on my computer to my 500G external drive these days instead of discs (more capacity, less messing around with multiple DVD's etc!). However itunes doesn't seem to give you that option, unless I've missed something obvious???
Thanks, Caroline

Generally, that's the better way to do it but you can't use the iTunes utility. Use Windoze Explorer to simply drag the entire iTunes folder to the external drive.
For subsequent backups, be sure to trash the existing backup first. If you don't do that, you will be adding files to the existing backup rather than replacing them. If something was deliberately removed from the library by you (or automatically by iTunes), you want to ensure that it's also removed from the backup.

Putting iTunes Music Onto External Hardrive

Hi guys,
Just wondering if someone can help answear my question hopefully or give me some help
I have a macbook air and currently have all my itunes music stored onto the mac internal hard drive. However, I recently bought an external hard drive and was wondering, If i can or if its possible?? If I move all the music from my mac onto my external hardrive, would the music still play or be rejistered in my iTunes library because my iphone is on auto sync for music with itunes.
I know that once I draged and dropped a music clip straight from my external into itunes and it still played, registered even when i didnt have my external plugged in and also didnt have a copy of it on my mac at all. Just wondering if its the same for music???
Cheers,
Thomas

Awesome thank you Niel.
It's just copying over to my external now. Afterwards can I delete the itunes music folder off my mac cause i need to free up a lot of space. If i do this after opening itunes with holding the option key down and click chose library which will be from my external. Then will all itunes music still work even when I dont have the external plugged in

Moving iPhoto library onto external hard drive

I would like to transfer all of my photos over to my external hard drive as my MacBook is filling up fast.
I followed the directions on moving the iPhoto library onto my external hard drive. I can see the iPhoto icon on the external drive. I no longer see it under Me/Pictures.
If I select the iPhoto icon on my external hard drive to open iPhoto, it opens without any photos. If I press "option" while opening iPhoto from the icon at the bottom of the screen the only option I have is from the following: Users/Me/Movies/iMovie Projects.localized/iPhoto Library. This option does open iPhoto so that I can see my photos. There is an option there to "Create New" so I added my hard drive. But if I use that as my default, I get no pictures.
A couple of questions. How do I complete this process? Where are my pictures now? I'm assuming they are on my external hard drive. I didn't delete them from my MacBook so I'm also assuming they are there but not visible.
Thanks

As we're not sure what you have done exactly it's hard to be certain how to progress.
This is how you move an iPhoto Library
Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
There is no way you've done that if you can no longer see the Library at Me/Pictures.

Cant drag file onto external hardrive.

can anyone help me please dont have my imac worked out just yet. My WD elements external hardrive is formatted MS-DOS (FAT). Now i have been using it for quite a while have never had any problems until now. Usually i can drag pretty much anything and everything into it. I'm not sure whats happend, but now it wont let me put anything in it. It wont let me move anything -The white circle with the line through it pops up now whenever i try to drag any files onto it. i have plugged another hardrive in to see if that would work and it wont let me drag anything into it either and it is fromatted the same as my other one. Whats has happened? any help with fixing this would be greatly appreciated!! cheers

Hello,
In Finder, do a Get Info on one of the Drives, is it Locked or what Priviledges does it show for you?
Another thing about MS-Dos/Fat drives is the limit of files/folders at the top level, (128-256 depending), once that is reached, no more can be added, you have to delete one file & make a folder to move or create other files in.

1 library, 1 external hardrive, 2 macs using it.

Hello out there, Ive got my entire itunes library on my external 500gb hardrive. I would like to use both my imac g5 power pc and my macbook pro to use and share this one external hardrive so that I don't have to duplicate anything. my g5 is running itunes 7 and my macbook pro is running itunes 8. I don't wanna upgrade to either if I don't have to.

I would prefer to use it one at a time on which ever computer I am running. I constantly connect and reconnect it to either computer. Still, to answer my question, A) Do I still have to run the same Itunes version? and B) How do I get the song list to read on the second mac. Simply going to preferences/advanced and setting the itunes music folder location isn't working.

Can't move iTunes library onto external drive?

I am trying to clear some space of my MacBook Pro's internal hard drive by moving my iTunes library onto an Mac-formatted external drive. I have followed to the letter the instructions of the Apple document (setting external HD as location of new iTunes library, then selecting Advanced/Consolidate Library).
The process continued for a bit before it crashed and said, "Copying Music failed. The disk could not be read from or written to."
I had noticed that the error occurred when trying to copy a file that had the "#" symbol in its name. Typically, that character is only a problem with Windows, and I both disks are Mac OS. Nevertheless, I found that the song file in question was a duplicate, so I deleted it and tried again. This time, I got the error message right away!
I have installed all updates, repaired permissions, and can see no reason for this to happen. I have Googled the error message and found a lot of references to this happening when copying to an iPod, but I am moving my library to an external HD.
Please help! My internal HD is running out of space!

That was it! Thanks! During the straight-up copy of the iTunes Music folder, the operation crashed because "some data could not be read or written." Had the iTunes error message been similar, I would have known that was the case.
Currently, I am running an additional copy of the library using the ditto terminal commmand, so I can see a list of all the corrupt song files. So far about 15.
Thanks again!!!!

Backing up pictures onto external drive

I need to restore my Mac and want to ensure I've backed up pictures correctly before doing so. Would simply dragging iPhoto pictures folder onto external drive safely back them up?

Yes it would.
Regards
TD

Issue With Backing Up Video Onto External LaCie Drive

I captured some video onto my external LaCie Drive. I am now backing everything up onto a second LaCie drive, but some files will not copy over. I've tried copying to my desktop and then to that drive but that does not work either. I get a pop-up saying,
"Sorry, the operation could not be completed because an unexpected error occured (Error Code 0)"
Any idea what's causing this?

Did you reformat both drives to MacOS Extended?
If not, that could be part of your problem. LaCie sells a lot of drives and some of them come as MS-DOS compatible (aka FAT-32 formatted) which causes all sorts of problems with Mac systems.
x

Backed library onto external hard drive, but after transfer, playlists, playcounts ect haven't saved?

On my old laptop I backed up my music on to an external hard drive ready to transfer over to my new laptop.
After copying the folder from my external to the new laptops' own drive, I duly followed instructions to restore the library.
I thought all was well and good but I noticed that it only copied the songs.. no song history or playlists. I added a new album to the library (an annoying experience after the new update in Feb) and noticed that when I went to sync my ipod (classic), all it did was charge my ipod.
So basically all my itunes is, is just a brand new library with my songs pasted in. Theres no history of song playcounts or playlists.
Needless to say im very irritated, as I have had no problems in the past and seem to have lost over EIGHT YEARS of history :/
The old laptop has been reformatted and wiped so I can't even go back and start again. Is there any way of moving my info from the ipod itself to the laptop?!! Any help would be appreciated, thank you.

Ah sorted it. Basically I had renamed my iTunes folder in the hard drive, so when I transfered to My music there were two folders. I have since renamed and deleted the original iTunes folder and it works now. Thank you

HT1751 How to get a complete copy of Itunes Library onto external hd?

The situation is that I am going to completely reboot my Macbook Air, but before doing so I am going to back up everything, and back up my iTunes library seperately. So my question(s) is, how do I copy everything in the Library (playlists, apps, movies, etc) onto my hard drive? Is it as simple as exporting my library, or is there something else I need to do.
I am also aware that once I back up my library I will have to deactivate my account and reactivate it upon the new boot.
thank you for any help.
-Mike

Copy the entire iTunes folder to the external drive.
If you have content that isn't stored in the iTunes Media folder consolidate the library first.
If your iTunes Media folder isn't directly inside the main iTunes folder see Make a split library portable.
tt2

Moved main Library to External Hardrive. Now it is running slower.

I ran out of room on my G4 Laptop and bought a 300gb Seagate hardrive. Now that I have changed the main library to this drive it takes a minute or more to bring up all the thumbnails in any of the folders I click on. Sometimes it take 2-3 minutes. Once they are there the working speed seems to be about the same as the internal hard drive.
Is this to be expected from using the external hard drive as the primary library source?
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Brent
G4 17" 1.67 with 23" Cinema Mac OS X (10.4.4)

It seems that AP only really runs fast on the
internal HD, where the system is installed on.
I have 2 internal HD and tried to use the one without
the system - I had the same problem - AP was super
slow. As soon as I moved the project back to the
internal system HD it worked fine.
There must be another explanation for what accurred to you, here. I have my Aperture library on a second internal 500GB Hitatchi drive. It's as fast as anything else.
I don't recall the model of computer you have, but is your second drive sharing the bus? Have you tried putting your second drive on a seperate bus? Just some thoughts.

Backing Up Library onto external hardrive

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