Help - Moving Music Files to Larger External Hard Drive

Before I lose any files or otherwise ruin my iTunes installation, I need to know the best and safest way to move my iTunes music from my C: drive to my new external drive while still retaining full iTunes functionality while clearing space on my cramped internal drive.
Adding some slight complexity, I also have the Honda TTS (text to speech) software loaded which provides for the functionality of the music link for my iPod in my Honda Accord.
Do I have to reinstall iTunes on the new drive? If so, how do I preserve my music files in the process.
Thanks for reading.
Chris
Dell Dimension 2200 Windows XP

No, it's not necessary to re-install iTunes on the new drive. The following link from MacMuse should help. 2 tips, before doing anything in iTunes, you must boot-up the EHD prior to opening iTunes or iTunes will revert the iTunes music folder location back to the main drive. Next, there are 2 associated database files with iTunes, the .itl & .xml files . These 2 files CAN'T be moved off you system's drive, that is their "home" & they have to stay put. Welcome to discussions!
EDIT:
I guess I'm getting tired, forgot the link, so sorry!
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=607487
Message was edited by: StarDeb55

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Hi,
See this Support Article:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
Restoring your iTunes Library backup
These Links may also be of Interest:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/12803190#12803190
https://discussions.apple.com/message/12699828#12699828
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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751?viewlocale=en_US
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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
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Do you mean after you followed the instructions and copied \Music\iTunes folder to the external drive and then deleted something from iTunes, it deleted it from the external drive also?
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What do you mean "the library"?
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At present I'm having to use the Thinkpad with Windows Media Player to play back all this music over my Hi-Fi, but would like to free up the Thinkpad for other uses by my family, and would like to run all my music from the Mac I use for everything else.

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Moving 1000's of music files to a new hard drive

I have a good amount of songs and I have them all on my external hard drive for my laptop. I want to put the files on the laptop hard drive because my laptop uses all it's memory when connected to the external hard drive, plus whenever i want to carry my computer around, i can only listen to my music if i bring my external hard drive(which can be a hassel). The thing is, if I were to cut and paste all of my music files from my external hard drive, and put them on my laptop hard drive, the saved playlist for itunes would not be able to locate the files at all. I really dont want to have to individually locate these thousands of files after i transfer hard drives. I tried going into the itunes library files with notepad, but the text was all jibberish and in computer terms. Does anyone have any ideas to be able to accomplish this task in less time than having to individually locate each file after i move the files over?
Sony Vaio Windows XP

Thank you for that. It all looks like it should work except for step 12:
From the Advanced menu, choose Consolidate Library. A message appears that says: "Consolidating your library will copy all of your music into the iTunes Music folder. This cannot be undone."
There is no button that says consolidate library. Not even on the example picture they have.

How can I copy files from an external hard drive without creating copies on the disk?

I recently purchased a MacBook Air as part of a requirement for schoolwork. I decided to use it to sync music to my iPod and iPhone, and it worked perfectly well, however, i keep most of my music files on an external hard drive. Recently, it started sending me messages about the hard drive being almost full. I checked on the about this Mac screen, and it said that up to 95 gigabytes on the disk drive had been taken up by music. This was not my intention, as i had previously assumed the music was kept on my external hard drive as it had been on windows. I attempted to delete the folder, but it now said that my disk drive was taken up by "other" files. I want to still use my iTunes without these files copying. How?

Hi flyingroastchicken,
If the songs are being stored on your Mac, then make sure that the location of where the iTunes media is being store. Take a look at the article below to verify that you have it set up the way you want.
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201562
Take it easy,
-Norm G.

Help - Moving Music Files to Larger External Hard Drive

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