External Hard drive Died - Best way to restore library

The External Hard drive where I stored all my iTunes files has died and I am unable to retrieve any files. Every thing is on my iPod whats the best way of geting the library & playlists back into iTunes?

Install software such as Paragon NTFS. Regardless of the method you use, back the data up; that drive may fail at any time.
(120806)

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Hard drive died -- how do I restore Library from Back up?

My hard drive died -- and a new one has been installed. I have a backup of my itunes as it was on the old hard drive -- but when I try to open it I get told:
"The file itunes.library.it cannot be read because it was created by a newer version of itunes".
Some of the music is also on our ipod -- and other pieces on 2 iphones. I'm a little overwhelmed with how to procced.
Any advice on how to proceed in getting all the music back in one main location? Thanks!

*"The file itunes.library.it cannot be read because it was created by a newer version of itunes"*
Have you had a chance to look at either of these troubleshooting pages? They may be of some help:
iTunes for Windows in Windows XP or Windows 2000 doesn't open after upgrading
iTunes for Windows in Windows Vista doesn't open after upgrading
*Some of the music is also on our ipod*
iTunes will only let you copy your purchases directly from an iPod to the computer, you'll find details in this article: Copying iTunes Store purchases from your iPod or iPhone to a computer
For everything else (including purchases) there are a number of third party utilities that you can use to retrieve the music files and playlists from your iPod. You'll find that they have varying degrees of functionality and some will transfer movies, videos, photos, podcasts and games as well. You can read reviews and comparisons of some of them here:
Wired News - Rescue Your Stranded Tunes
Comparison of iPod managers
A selection of iPod to iTunes utilities:
TuneJack Windows Only (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
SharePod Windows Only (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod2PC Windows Only
iDump Windows Only
YamiPod Mac and Windows
iPod Music Liberator Mac & Windows
Floola Mac & Windows
iPodRip Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Music Liberator Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
Music Rescue Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iGadget Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iRepo Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Access Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
TouchCopy Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
There's also a manual method of copying songs from your iPod to a Mac or PC. The procedure is a bit involved and won't recover playlists but if you're interested it's available on page 2 at this link: Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer - The Definitive Guide

Is an external hard drive the best way to keep tons of photos and songs, or does it slow down the mac too much to retrieve it?

I have an old Macbook that has a bunch of pictures and songs on it, but few videos. What I do have is slowing it down, particularly iPhoto - I sometimes have trouble editing pictures because the RAM just isn't there (I have it maxed out at 2gb), or even organizing them. I have thought of moving my pictures off the mac onto a hard-wired external drive, but have been told it makes mounting iPhoto even slower to do so. What do people do that have many thousands of pictures?

Install software such as Paragon NTFS. Regardless of the method you use, back the data up; that drive may fail at any time.
(120806)

I have an external hard drive set up as a Time Machine backup on my IMac. I want to add a second external hard drive and put my Aperture Photo Library on it. Is there a way to have the photos on this second hard drive automatically back up to the Time Mac

I have an IMac with an external hard drive set up as a Time Machine for automatic backups. I want to add a second external hard drive and load my Aperture Photo Library on to it so that the library can be shared by both me and my wife. Is there a way to automatically backup the photo library that will be on the second hard drive to the Time Machine hard drive?

Open System Preference > Time Machine
Click Options....
Ckick on external disk in list and hit the - button below the list to remove from the Exclusion list
Allan

What brand external hard drive is best with time machine

what brand of external hard drive works best with time machine?

Contrary to the other two replies, I will relate what I've read here: WD drives are fine, but their (cheap?) enclosures are subject to failure. Some buy a bare WD drive and install it in an Oxford Chip external enclosure (OWC / macsales.com would be one source). And, I have two LaCie Quadras and one OWC Mercury Pro - both are generally recommended here. If you want it bootable, most WD drives do not support it:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1787/related/1/session/L2F2LzEvd GltZS8xMzUxNTIzMzIwL3NpZC9ueUFYc1g5bA%3D%3D
Please note: it's good to have an external hard drive which has its own power supply and, as mentioned, FW 800 or USB 3). You also do not need any software that comes on the external - you will most likely need to format it anyway because most come formatted for Windows, but that is easy using Disk Utility.

HT203167 external hard drive died and have new one. how can i get my old purchases onto new hard drive?

help! my external hard drive died. have tons of tv shows and movies on it. how can i get my old purchases from itunes onto my new hard drive?

Just plug it in and sync it.
(60463)

When my hard drive died I lost my itunes library and now I'm being told that I can't synch my ipod with new songs unless I delete all existing because I can only have one library at a time

when my hard drive died I lost my itunes library and now I'm being told that I can't synch my ipod with new songs unless I delete all existing because I can only have one library at a time

Copy all the content on your iPod back to your PC and into iTunes. Then go ahead and sync the iPod with your new library.
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

New MacBook pro how do I add external hard drive which has my entire iTunes library on it. Do I just drag external drive icon into iTunes preference box that shows where new itunes library is now located ie. On the MacBook pro.

how do I add external hard drive which contains my entire iTunes library to new MacBook Pro. i want to keep iTunes library on external hard drive. But I want all my iTunes information: artist, songs, albums, playlists on my new MacBook Pro. I know about going to iTunes preferences- advanced-itunes media folder location. At this point I don't know what to do Do I drag external icon into iTunes media folder location box. I want to keep music files on external hard drive. I don't want to use macbook pro memory for my very large music files.

I will request that your query be relocated to the iPhoto forum where knowledgeable iPhoto users will be able to assist you.
Ciao.

I'm trying to transfer my pictures from my iPhoto library to my external hard drive. I dragged the iPhoto Library folder into the drive and after waiting a while it says Error Code -36. I need to free up space asap, what should i do?

I'm trying to transfer my pictures from my iPhoto library to my external hard drive. I dragged the iPhoto Library folder into the drive and after waiting a while it says "Error Code -36 The finder cannot complete the operation because some data in 'iPhoto Library' could not be read or written". I need to free up space asap, what should i do??

Yes, the Old Master file has a folder for each year where I find all photos from that specific year. I am attaching a screen shot of the file.
In the meantime i have managed to download all photos (it did not download any video files though in mpg, avi, 3gp, m4v,mp4 and mov format) to a new iphoto library. Unfortunately the photos are quite mixed and often doubled up. I ma considering to purchase iphoto library which checks all duplicates in iphoto. this will save me a lot of time. What do you think?

Syncing -whenever I connect my iPad to my computer it ejects my external hard drive which is where my iTunes library is stored? What's the deal???

Syncing -whenever I connect my iPad to my computer it ejects my external hard drive which is where my iTunes library is stored? What's the deal???
Anyone know how to fix this?

You can't connect directly to the external drive, but should be able to use iTunes Home Sharing via the laptop.
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH1453

My MacBook Pro won't let me mount my external Hard Drive. Just trying to restore my iTunes library.

My MacBook Pro, less than a year old, started acting weird. I backed everything up, took it in to Best Buy, who sent it out to Apple Repair and they put in a new motherboard.
It's running on Mac OS X Version 10.7.4
Now I am trying to put everything back on the computer from my external Maxtor 80GB Hard Drive. MacBook Pro won't recognize the external drive.
I tried Disk Utility. I can see the external drive, and did a repair disk and verify disk. Several times. Each time it says "This partition map seems to be ok."
However, I am not able to mount it, as that option is greyed out and i can't select it.
Also, under the Icon for the external hard drive, it has the Macintosh HD Icon (essentially my computer). I tried to restore this way, didn't work.
I need this to mount, as it has all of my itunes stuff on it; dozens of my sons movies, and my entire iTunes library.
PLEASE HEEEEELP!! HOW CAN I MOUNT THIS EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE? Thank you in advance

Try things in this USB/Firewire faq.
DALE

External Hard Drive Died -- Full Library on iPod -- How can I get on iTunes

My external hard drive recently died and I do not have my music backed up. All 3,600 of my music tracks are on my iPod, but I am afraid to sync my iPod up to my computer and add anything new for fear that it will erase all of my iPod trackes because it can't find them on my computer.
What are my options? Is there a way to turn off auto-sync before it erases my tracks? Could I hook it up to another computer?
I thought that I've had lost tracks before (tracks with an exclamation point next to them in iTunes) and I DID NOT lose them off my iPod when syncing, but I'm afraid to take the chance. As a result, I'm a prisoner and unable to add new music to my iPod.

If your iPod is set to update automatically you need to take care connecting to an empty iTunes. You can use a keyboard command to prevent your iPod auto-syncing with iTunes. While connecting the iPod to the computer on Windows with iTunes 7.3 or later installed hold down the Shift + Ctrl keys together. This will stop the iPod from auto-syncing with iTunes and the iPod will appear in the source list. Wait until you are sure the iPod has mounted, and that it will not auto sync and then you can let the keys go. This may take between 20 to 30 seconds depending on your computer: iTunes - Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows
When your iPod appears in the iTunes source list change the update setting to manual, that way you can continue to use your iPod without the risk of accidentally erasing it. Also when using most of the utilities listed below your iPod needs to be enabled for disc use, changing to manual update will do this by default: Managing content manually on iPod
Once you are safely connected there are a few things you can do to restore your iTunes from the iPod. The transfer of content sources such as songs imported from CD is designed by default to be one way from iTunes to iPod. However there are a number of third party utilities that you can use to retrieve the music files and playlists from your iPod. You'll find that they have varying degrees of functionality and some will transfer movies, videos, photos, podcasts and games as well. Have a look at the web pages and documentation, this is just a small selection of what's available, they are generally quite straightforward. You can read reviews and comparisons of some of them here:
Wired News - Rescue Your Stranded Tunes
Comparison of iPod managers
TuneJack Windows Only (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod2PC Windows Only
iDump Windows Only
SharePod Windows Only
iPodRip Mac & Windows
YamiPod Mac and Windows
Music Rescue Mac & Windows
iPodCopy Mac and Windows
iGadget Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iRepo Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Access Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
If you have any iTunes Music Store purchases the transfer of purchased content from the iPod to authorised computers was introduced with iTunes 7. You'll find details in this article: Copying iTunes Store purchases from your iPod or iPhone to a computer
There's also a manual method of copying songs from your iPod to a Mac or PC. The procedure is a bit involved and won't recover playlists but if you're interested it's available on page 2 at this link: Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer - The Definitive Guide
Whichever of these retrieval methods you choose, keep your iPod in manual mode until you have reloaded your iTunes and you are happy with your playlists etc then it will be safe to return it auto-sync.

I backed up my iPhoto library manually to an external hard drive. How do I restore it?

I backed up select portions of my hard drive to an external hard drive. At the time, I didn't realize that it was going to be so hard to recover the original photos from the iPhoto library. The backup is basically just a command-line "cp" of the iPhoto Library directory. What's the best way to either recover the original photos or restore the iPhoto library to a new computer?

OK, sorry for the delay. Holidays and whatnot.
Sooooo... the backup was basically a command line "cp -r", however the partition that I backed up to on the external drive was FAT32. So that explains why it's no longer a package. Clearly a mistake on my part, but still need to find a way to recover.
I tried to rebuild the library DB, but it just bails out with the same exact message ("You can't open your current photo library using this version of iPhoto. You have made changes to your photo library using a newer version of iPhoto. Please quit and use the latest version of iPhoto.").
So crap. Should I keep trying to find a way to get iPhoto to recognize my backed up library, or should I give up on that approach and just try to manually get my photos out of the backup? If the latter, what's the best way to do that? I see an "Originals" subfolder, does that have all my photos in it (I only care about originals, don't care about edits)? What about the "Data" subfolder, which also seems to have some photos?

Old Hard drive died...automated restore from Time Machine?

Is there a way to just sort of "one click" the process for restoring from an external drive I've been using? My hard drive died on my MacBook and I had it replaced under my Apple Care warranty. Without dragging and dropping things is there an easy way to just pick up where I left off? I'm trying to search around and I'm not finding any solutions for this particular situation.

you can do a full system restore from TM.
Start from the leopard install DVD, once past the language screen go to Utilities menu and select "restore from Time machine". follow the instructions.

How to get things working after External Hard Drive Died

I had all of my iMovie videos (about 800 GB) on an external drive that died. Fortunately it was backed up to another external drive using Time Machine. I bought a new drive and couldn't figure out how to restore using Time Machine so i transfered the files manually using Finder. The transfer was successful, but now the movies do not appear in the iMovie event library. How do I get iMovie to work with the new external hard drive. The drive itself appears in the Event Library window, but none of the movies do. Then I also need to figure out how to back up the movies again to Time Machine. When it looks to do it now, it wants to duplicate the moveis which exceeds the Time Machine hard drive capacity (2TB). Thanks!!

For you to see them in iMovie, the Events need to be in a folder called iMovie Events. This folder must be at the top level of the drive.
Move it there and restart iMovie, and you should see them.

External Hard drive Died - Best way to restore library

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