External Hard Drive and iTunes problems

I have an external hard drive with all my music on it. When I am starting up iTunes it is coming up with a list of all the songs but when you try to play them it says it couldn't locate the file do you want to locate it... I want to have it so that I don't have to copy music onto my PC as I have 80GB of music on the external HDD and only a 40GB internal hard drive. I have already set the path in preferences to the external HDD but am frustrated that I have to keep searching for songs before they can be played... Please help!!

The original error message means that the file was moved from the location where iTunes first learned about the song. You can't move files around after iTunes knows about them without encountering this issue. The only way to fix it is to put the files back where iTunes expects them to live, and then let iTunes manage the relocation as described here.

Similar Messages

External hard drive and itunes problem

I've had real trouble with my external logitec USB 2 (that's the japanese logitec not LOGITECH) hard drive.
I had my itunes music folder on it, and when i connected my shuffle and tried to transfer songs, itunes would usually freeze. so i transferred all the songs onto my ibook instead and it works fine as long as the external drive isn't connected, BUT get this: if i have the harddrive connected to my ibook, itunes will freeze when i try to transfer tunes from my ibook to my shuffle. i don't get it. unless my ibook is confusing the two drives? sorry, i don't know much about this. i've tried reinstalling itunes and i have the latest version. i've also reformatted my shuffle. but no luck.
any ideas???
thanks!
David.

Nick,
I am by no means an iTunes guru and I haven't come across this problem myself.....but this is what I would try.
Select all of the songs in your iTunes library and delete them from the library only.
File > Add Folder to Library > browse to your folder on your external and hit OK
I have to do this every time I add new songs to my MP3 folder, as iTunes can't figure out that most of these songs already exist in the library. It then decides to make multiple instances of the same song and therefore showing that I have tons of duplicate songs.
If you need this for transferring your music to your iPod, then by all means more power to you.
If you are doing this to play your music only, then I strongly suggest looking into purchasing a different music player. I personally use Musicmatch Jukebox for several reasons;
1. It allows the user to sort thier music library in MANY different ways using various criteria (not just one option to sort music).
2. It allows for many more fields for your ID3 meta tags, so you can have featured artists shown on compilation CD's.
3. It's been around for a LONG time and incorporates the feedback they receive from the customers.
4. You now have the option to buy it with all future updates in one price.
Hope that this helps you out....
Cheers
Windows XP

How to use external hard drive and iTunes together?

how to use external hard drive and iTunes together?

Yes I did get to that part.... I went trough external to retrive itunes folder... When I selected the folder, it said that it was locked, choose another folder... I then went to my external again to my itunes folder and and used command I to see if folder was locked and it wasn't.... it was suggested on another forum to reboot.. which I did and still same problem... All I want to do is link my external hard drive that has my itunes playlist from another Mac to my new one.. and to also use the external as the main source for adding new songs to my playlist...

DJ with an external hard drive and itunes

Hi,
I have been asked to play music at a venue on Saturday and I have over 800 albums on my external hard drive (mp3 format).
The venue uses a PC hooked up to a mixing desk and they have itunes as the preferred MP3 player.
The owner of the venue uses his own music (stored internally and through an external) all set up as an itunes library.
My question is this – is it possible for me to take along my external hard drive and plug it in, create a playlist and just drag the mp3’s from the external as and when required onto the playlist without problems?
I hope this makes sense!
Cheers,
Al

gusaphit wrote:
so because you have kept your itunes folder and library on an EHD, I take it you have also deleted the actual Itunes program folder from your computer's C drive?
Not the program folder, iTunes folder where your music library and ancillary files are kept. I haven't had my iTunes music on any internal hard drive on any computer for years.
I am trying to delete the music/movies off of this PC as it is my work station as well.
What steps do I need to take in order to successfully ensure that my Itunes will be secured on my EHD and fully operable should I want to add more music, purchase more music, or delete/re-arrange music as I am doing now.
Check in Preferences>Advanced to make sure that iTunes is pointed to your EHD. If it is, you should be fine. Then, just to make sure that everything is where it should be consolidate your library: File>Library>Organize Library.
Follow-up: If I move the program over to my EHD does that mean I can use any PC to download music into the Itunes library from my EHD?
I don't think you want to move the iTunes.exe file to your EHD. As I understand it, iTunes isn't really happy there and it takes some work to get it there. Just move the library.
I'm asking because you responded and you're cute.
Very happy to help but really, I'm not that cute.

Problem storing music on external hard drive and iTunes recognising the music.

Hi hope someone is able to help.
I've set up iTunes on my parents windows Laptop to store all the music on an external hardrive. In preferences and in advanced I altered where the music was located. But unfortunately when they removed the external and went to use it a few days later, iTunes did not recognise where the music was stored.
There is no music in the iTunes folder on the laptop only on the external.
I deleted all the music that could not be located...all had exclamation mark.
Added folder to library, which was from the external hardrive.
Music re added and they were able to put music on their ipod. However the same has happened again when they removed and reinserted their external. Should I just cut my losses and reput all the music back on the Laptop (makes it very slow, quite alot of it) or am I missing checking or deselecting something in itunes, with it being on an external hard drive.
Hope to hear back from someone to help.

If you've split the media folder out to an external drive and then start iTunes while the drive is disconnected iTunes gets out of sorts. It will reset the media folder to the default internal path. Depending on what other devices have been connected the external drive letter may also change from time to time which also confuses iTunes. What works best is to create your iTunes library at the root of the external drive, with the media folder inside. In this confuration if the drive isn't connected or has changed letter, iTunes will stop with an error. You can either cancel, connec the drive, and restart, or in the case of a changed drive letter, simply browse to X:\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl to open it, where X:: is the current letter for the external drive.
See make a split library portable for details of how to rearrange your library if you've got it working. Alternatively press and hold down shift as you start iTunes, keep holding until asked to choose or create a library, then click create and make the library at X:\iTunes. Move all the media inside X:\iTunes\iTunes Media, then use File Add Folder to Library to import it.
tt2

External Hard Drive and iTunes

I've been having a problem lately with one of my USB outlets, and evidence of that is provided by the fact that my External Hard Drive icon on my bottom right task tray keeps repeating the fact that it's plugged in. The wire is loose or something, but it's the only free outlet I have.
But that isn't the problem...
I recently opened iTunes, for the first time since this started happening, to find a completely blank list. I opened it several times and nothing changed. My purchased list, Listen count, etc is wiped out from the library, but all of the songs are still on the hard drive itself. Do I have to keep importing the songs back into iTunes every time this happens, or is there a way to tell it "this hard drive may be removed?" I have a few thousand songs, so you can imagine how long it takes to import them.

Welcom to AD!
Take a look at the note from this article
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
+Note: If you move your library to an external drive, you'll need to power up and connect the drive before starting iTunes. If you don't, iTunes will prompt you to either locate the library or to create a new library ( *which will result in an empty library* ). No matter what, it's always a good idea to have a backup of the media you have in iTunes.+
There are only two things you can do:
1) Move the music files back onto your hard drive
2) Solve the USB hardware problem

Moved Itunes to External hard drive and Itunes can't find them

I went to the Apple Store at the Grove on Friday. An employee there printed out these instructions:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748
I followed the instructions. All my music is on my external hard drive now (My Book). When I open Itunes all the songs in the entire library have a circle with ! in them.
It says the song could not be used because the file could not be found. When I search My Book the song plays and the ! is removed. I have several thousand songs. Do I have to do this with each and every one?
Also, I can't import new cd's now.
Can anyone help?
Thanks, Vicki

Try this -> iTunes Track CPR v1.3

External Hard Drives and iTunes, on Mac Book Pro and PC?

If you transfer your iTunes library from PC to an external hard drive, can you use itunes, from the external hard drive when you plug it into Mac Book Pro?
I'm very confused about this!
All my music is on PC and I want to save it to my external hard drive. But I will no longer be using that PC afterwards.
I would like to use itunes on my Mac but it only has 128 Gb, not enough storage for my iTunes library.
So, can you use your transfered itunes library from the PC to external drive on your Mac?
Another question I have is, when your itunes is on your external hardrive can you still sync, make playlists and add new songs?
I don't know very much about external hard drives, but I need the space.

No. Likely the drive is presently formatted NTFS which is no good on a Mac unless you want to buy spcial software to enable it (given your scenario it is not worth it). The best format for Mac use is MacExtended, but your PC cannot write files to that. The intermediate solution is to reformat the drive to DOS FAT, but as I already said this isn't ideal.
If it were me I would:
1) With the PC copy the entire iTunes folder to the current external, presumably formatted as NTFS.
2) Buy the new second drive I know I will need for backing up both my computer and my old external drive. Format it as Mac extended. In the long run you want to configure this for use with Time Machine but I can't help you with that because I can't run TM. For the time being you are using it to temporarily store files.
3) Using the Mac make sure the new drive is formatted to Mac extended.
4) On the Mac copy the entire iTunes folder from the old drive to the new.
5) With the Mac reformat the old drive to Mac extended.
6) With the Mac copy the entire iTunes folder from the new drive to the old one which is now in the Mac friendly format. Start iTunes with the option key held down as described earlier.
Others may be able to help with some details on formatting drives because I use an older system. I know with my system version when you reformat or partition you lose all files on a drive which is why you have to have somewhere to temporarily store your library. I think they did some changes but I am not sure of the details.

UserEventAgent won't let me eject my external hard drive, and other problems

I'm running a MacBook Pro (2008-ish model) running Mountain Lion 10.8.2 with 4Gb of RAM and 750Gb of internal HD (the original 250Gb seriously cramped my style), and UserEventAgent is acting all weird.
Because of that old 250Gb HD, I was in the habit of storing files I didn't need at the time on an external hard drive, a LaCie 500Gb connected by FW800 (probably not relevant). And lately, whenever I plug it in, I can't eject it without forcing it to eject.
Using the "list open files" command and searching for that drive [ lsof | grep LaCie ] reveals that UserEvent drops an immediate hook in it for some reason. This connection is immediate, and short of force-quitting UserEventAgent in Activity Monitor at the exact moment I try to eject that drive, I can't disconnect it properly without forcing it or shutting down completely.
In fact, looking at UserEventAgent's open files and ports in Activity Monitor, something just plain doesn't look right:
/usr/libexec/UserEventAgent
/System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/PlugIns/csparser.bundle/Contents/M acOS/csparser
/private/var/folders/td/hnt8krzc8xj63p001s61rg7r0000gn/C/mds/mdsDirectory.db
/usr/share/icu/icudt49l.dat
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/ACRRDaemon.plugin/Contents/MacOS/ACRRDaemon
/System/Library/KerberosPlugins/KerberosFrameworkPlugins/heimdalodpac.bundle/Con tents/MacOS/heimdalodpac
/System/Library/KerberosPlugins/KerberosFrameworkPlugins/LKDCLocate.bundle/Conte nts/MacOS/LKDCLocate
/System/Library/KerberosPlugins/KerberosFrameworkPlugins/Reachability.bundle/Con tents/MacOS/Reachability
/System/Library/KerberosPlugins/KerberosFrameworkPlugins/SCKerberosConfig.bundle /Contents/MacOS/SCKerberosConfig
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/AirPortUserAgent.plugin/Contents/MacOS/AirPortU serAgent
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/AppleHIDMouseAgent.plugin/Contents/MacOS/AppleH IDMouseAgent
/private/var/db/mds/messages/se_SecurityMessages
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/AssistantUEA.plugin/Contents/MacOS/AssistantUEA
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/AutoTimeZone.plugin/Contents/MacOS/AutoTimeZone
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/BTMMPortInUseAgent.plugin/Contents/MacOS/BTMMPo rtInUseAgent
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/BluetoothUserAgent-Plugin.plugin/Contents/MacOS /BluetoothUserAgent-Plugin
/System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleHDAHALPlugIn.bund le/Contents/MacOS/AppleHDAHALPlugIn
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/BonjourEvents.plugin/Contents/MacOS/BonjourEven ts
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/CalendarMonitor.plugin/Contents/MacOS/CalendarM onitor
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/CaptiveUserAgent.plugin/Contents/MacOS/CaptiveU serAgent
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/DiskUnmountWatcher.plugin/Contents/MacOS/DiskUn mountWatcher
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/EAPOLMonitor.plugin/Contents/MacOS/EAPOLMonitor
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/GSSNotificationForwarder.plugin/Contents/MacOS/ GSSNotificationForwarder
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/LocationMenu.plugin/Contents/MacOS/LocationMenu
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/PrinterMonitor.plugin/Contents/MacOS/PrinterMon itor
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/SCMonitor.plugin/Contents/MacOS/SCMonitor
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/alfUIplugin.plugin/Contents/MacOS/alfUIplugin
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.UserNotification.plugi n/Contents/MacOS/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.UserNotification
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.TimeMachine.plugin/Contents/MacOS/com .apple.TimeMachine
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.bonjour.plugin/Contents/MacOS/com.app le.bonjour
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.cfnotification.plugin/Contents/MacOS/ com.apple.cfnotification
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.dispatch.vfs.plugin/Contents/MacOS/co m.apple.dispatch.vfs
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.fsevents.matching.plugin/Contents/Mac OS/com.apple.fsevents.matching
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.iokit.matching.plugin/Contents/MacOS/ com.apple.iokit.matching
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.launchd.helper.plugin/Contents/MacOS/ com.apple.launchd.helper
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.locationd.events.plugin/Contents/MacO S/com.apple.locationd.events
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.notifyd.matching.plugin/Contents/MacO S/com.apple.notifyd.matching
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.rcdevent.matching.plugin/Contents/Mac OS/com.apple.rcdevent.matching
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.time.plugin/Contents/MacOS/com.apple. time
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.universalaccess.events.plugin/Content s/MacOS/com.apple.universalaccess.events
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.usernotificationcenter.matching.plugi n/Contents/MacOS/com.apple.usernotificationcenter.matching
/System/Library/Extensions/IOHIDFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOHIDLib.plugin/Con tents/MacOS/IOHIDLib
/private/var/folders/td/hnt8krzc8xj63p001s61rg7r0000gn/C/com.apple.LaunchService s-036501.csstore
/usr/lib/dyld
/private/var/db/dyld/dyld_shared_cache_x86_64
/dev/null
/dev/null
/dev/null
count=1, state=0x2
/dev/io8log
/Users/<username>/Library/Assistant/sync_flag
->0xc1a78b298c30c655
count=0, state=0
count=0, state=0
/private/etc/com.apple.screensharing.agent.launchd
/private/etc
/private
/usr/local/bin
/usr/local/bin
/usr/local
/usr
count=0, state=0
/private/var/db/PanicReporter
/private/var/db
/private/var
/private
count=0, state=0
/private/var/db/GPURestartReporter
/private/var/db
/private/var
/private
count=0, state=0
/private/etc
/private/etc
/private
count=0, state=0
/Users/<username>/Library/Services
/Users/<username>/Library
/Users/<username>
/Users
count=0, state=0
/Library
/Library
count=0, state=0
/Applications
/Applications/Utilities
/Applications
count=0, state=0
/Library/Caches
/Library/Caches
/Library
count=0, state=0
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AirPortBaseStationAgent.launchd
/Library/Preferences
/Library
count=0, state=0
/Applications/Fun/Steam.app
/Applications/Fun
/Applications
/Volumes
/Volumes
The repetitions (I mean seriously, who needs three open connections to /dev/null?), and the multiple instances of "count=0, state=0", suggest that UserEventAgent is getting bad info from somewhere.
If I can track down what's making UserEventAgent imitate an overly amorous octopus, maybe I can straighten out this mess. But I wouldn't be surprised to find that this list has picked up funky smells and bad habits from all the earlier versions of OS X I've run.
Help? Please?

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It won’t solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
Third-party system modifications are a common cause of usability problems. By a “system modification,” I mean software that affects the operation of other software — potentially for the worse. The following procedure will help identify which such modifications you've installed. Don’t be alarmed by the complexity of these instructions — they’re easy to carry out and won’t change anything on your Mac.
These steps are to be taken while booted in “normal” mode, not in safe mode. If you’re now running in safe mode, reboot as usual before continuing.
Below are instructions to enter some UNIX shell commands. The commands are harmless, but they must be entered exactly as given in order to work. If you have doubts about the safety of the procedure suggested here, search this site for other discussions in which it’s been followed without any report of ill effects.
Some of the commands will line-wrap or scroll in your browser, but each one is really just a single line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, and you can then either copy or drag it. The headings “Step 1” and so on are not part of the commands.
Note: If you have more than one user account, Step 2 must be taken as an administrator. Ordinarily that would be the user created automatically when you booted the system for the first time. The other steps should be taken as the user who has the problem, if different. Most personal Macs have only one user, and in that case this paragraph doesn’t apply.
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
When you launch Terminal, a text window will open with a line already in it, ending either in a dollar sign (“$”) or a percent sign (“%”). If you get the percent sign, enter “sh” and press return. You should then get a new line ending in a dollar sign.
Step 1
Copy or drag — do not type — the line below into the Terminal window, then press return:
kextstat -kl | awk '!/com\.apple/{printf "%s %s\n", $6, $7}'
Post the lines of output (if any) that appear below what you just entered (the text, please, not a screenshot.) You can omit the final line ending in “$”.
Step 2
Repeat with this line:
sudo launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.(apple|openssh|vix)|edu\.mit|org\.(amavis|apache|cups|isc|ntp|postfix|x)/{print $3}'
This time, you'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. You don't need to post the warning.
Note: If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before taking this step. If that’s not possible, skip to the next step.
Step 3
launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.apple|edu\.mit|org\.(x|openbsd)/{print $3}'
Step 4
ls -1A /e*/mach* {,/}L*/{Ad,Compon,Ex,Fram,In,Keyb,La,Mail/Bu,P*P,Priv,Qu,Scripti,Servi,Spo,Sta}* L*/Fonts 2> /dev/null
Important: If you formerly synchronized with a MobileMe account, your me.com email address may appear in the output of the above command. If so, anonymize it before posting.
Step 5
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of every login item' 2> /dev/null
Remember, steps 1-5 are all drag-and-drop or copy-and-paste, whichever you prefer — no typing, except your password. Also remember to post the output.
You can then quit Terminal.

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.

Two very mobile laptops, one external hard drive, and iTunes?

I'm very sorry if this has been answered, but I've searched a lot and haven't quite found the precise question I'm asking...
My household has two iBooks (G3 and G4) wirelessly networked through an original Airport. Our music is completely digital, and we have no stereo. Each iBook has a different iTunes library. When we want to play the G3's music, we connect the G3 to a good set of speakers (pretending to be a stereo) through the mini jack. Same for the G4. This would be fine, except we're both running out of internal hard drive space.
So, what we want to do is buy one external hard drive, both store our music files on it, and play music. A new drive in the mid-range should tide us both over till we can afford new computers.
But this has raised a whole host of questions:
1. How do we share a hard drive when we both have laptops that move about the house all the time? Sometimes the G3 sits on the desk playing music while the G4 sits on the couch checking email, and vice versa.
2. Can we set up just one iTunes library on the hard drive that is fully accessible to whichever computer is connected to it, both in terms of playing and in terms of updating?
3. But wouldn't that be terrible, anyway, because I couldn't sit on the couch and download new music into my iTunes folder automatically?
4. And this leads to what I really, really, want, which is an external hard drive that is independently wirelessly accessible by both computers.
5. Which in turn leads to the true wishlist, which is to be able to use AirTunes too. Then I could sit anywhere, access a shared library on either computer, and then stream it to my stereo.
Is any of this possible? Am I missing the forest for the trees? Is there some big picture that I am just not seeing? I just want both computers to be mobile, to each have more space to store music, and each still be able to play that music without the other one having to be involved.
Thanks a bunch -- Discussions is one of my favorite places to lurk for hours.
- Kendra
(BTW, I'd upgrade my Airport if it helped, or buy an Express. And I've seen a lot on Sharepoints, but am not sure if that's what I'm looking for.)

Well to answer several questions at once, there are Ethernet (aka Network) Hard drives you can buy that hook up via ethernet. you could plug it in near your router and then plug the ethernet cable into one of the Router's ethernet ports and set up a network drive. It doesn't have to be connected directly to a computer. Here are two examples (shop around for price, size and features)...
http://shop3.outpost.com/product/5031245?site=sr:SEARCH:MAINRSLTPG
http://shop3.outpost.com/product/3945658?site=sr:SEARCH:MAINRSLTPG
Patrick

Two External Hard Drives and Itunes folders

How do I make my imac access two external hard drives that contain ALL my itunes music?

Can I have an external hard drive with all of my itunes and use them in itunes as long as it is on?
But here is the real question, can this be done without have an Operating system on that external hard drive?

Copied Library to External Hard drive and iTunes cannot find

I copied my iTunes library to an external hard drive last night and went into preferences and changed location and then deleted the original folder...now iTunes is empty... If I go onto hard drive and select a song it tranfers it into iTunes (and back onto computers hard drive)...obviously did something wrong...anybody have any suggestions on how to fix?

Assuming you use the iTunes default settings where iTunes copied added items to your iTunes folder and organizes your library (meaning - everything is all self contained in the iTunes folder), then all you have to do is drag & drop your iTunes folder (not just the iTunes Music folder you find inside the iTunes folder) to the external drive and copy the entire thing.
If you want to test that it worked or would like to actually start using it from that location instead, use these instructions when you start iTunes to point it to the new location...
How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304447
If you are just testing, then close iTunes after you verify it works, and restart iTunes again with the same instructions and point it back to your internal drive (original) location.
Additional info...
Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307074
Cheers,
Patrick

If you use external hard drives and have problems, read this

My setup is :
Power Book G4 running Mac OS X 10.4.10, with the latest version of iTunes.
Since I have a huge amount of music, that I have aquired during the past 25 years, I was very excited, when finally an iPod with a decent HD was released.
As you know, 70,000+ songs will not fit on your internal HD in a Power Book, so I had to move my music collection to two external Firewire HDs.
Synching a subset of my 'overall collection' to my good old G3 iPod has never been an issue.... that was, until I hooked up my 160 GB iPod classic for the first time...
I ran into all kinds of issues, especially, when synching a huge amount of songs at one time (i.e. 26,000 songs and more).
The data on the iPod would be incomplete or corrupted, once the Synch was completed.
The iTunes helpdesk was clueless and had me restore my iPod, even after I have told them several times, that I have done this before (many times) and that this definitely was not the issue.
As mentioned in other threads, iTunes is unbearably slow, once a 160 GB iPod classic is connected. And as it turns out, the problem occures when transferring songs through this VERY slow application, from the firewire drives, to the iPod which is connected through USB. After a certain amount of songs, iTunes starts 'stuttering' (if I have to look at the 'spinning wheel' for another 15 minutes, I will lose my mind) and somehow the data transfer between iTunes and the iPod gets corrupted.
Hence, once the Sync is finally completed (we are talking about 5 hours), the iPod is no longer able to play any songs, and all that can be done, is resetting the iPod again and start from scratch.
How Apple missed this, during their beta testing, is beyond me. They probably only used the latest intel processors on their fastest machines.
So if you run into similar issues, and if you have a similar setup, you might want to start synching small batches of songs.
I hope, a fine tuned iTunes version will be released soon.

When I first experienced this problem it appeared as though everything was transferring correctly. The progress dialogue showed that I was transferring a few thousand songs and then stop. When I looked at the ipod it showed only a few hundred (if that) had been transferred. This was about a year ago that I had this problem.
I think what is happening is that the software is setting up the transfer but not actually transferring the files until the very end. Seems weird I know, but the problem was consistent. It only happened when I had the setting to transfer the album art selected.
Apple was no help. But when I plugged the sync cable directly into the computer everything worked fine. I would think that a good powered hub would work as well as being plugged directly into the computer, or at least using the outlets on the back of my Apple display, but that is not the case.
I don't know what to suggest about USB 1. Before USB 2, Apple used firewire with all of their ipods because USB was sooo slow. When USB caught up (or close enough) they changed the interface.
You might try unselecting the option to sync album art. I know that the new interface looks pretty ugly without it, but at least you would have your music.

Itunes music stored on external hard drive -- and itunes library empty

Hi, I recently upgraded to a new external HD (Seagate Go for Mac) and I moved my 111 GB of music media (which was stored on my old ext. HD) onto the Seagate. Only problem then was that when I tried to play a song in the iTunes library, it couldn't locate the file.
So -- after trying various combos of things, I ended-up doing a new install of iTunes. Which of course shows up empty (the iTunes library). And all my music media is still on the Seagate.
So -- is there a way to have my iTunes library recognize what is in the Seagate? So I don't have to burn that 111GB of music again?
Thank you

update to the question above -- I went into Time Machine and restored my iTunes library, so it is showing what music I have again in there. FYI in advanced settings, I kept the setting that the music is stored in the Seagate HD.
BUT when I click on any music, it still cannot locate the file (all the music media files are still stored on the Seagate ext. HD)
So -- how can I get the iTunes library to re-connect with what is in the Seagate HD?
Thank you!

External Hard Drive and iTunes problems

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