I can't get my Mac mini to recognize my music on my external hard drive. What am I doing wrong?

I am converging all my computers at home to macs, I recently got a mini and have all my music on an external hard drive. I can't seem to get my mini to register any of my music on my external, it does however register my movies, pics, and tv shows. I am at a loss!!

If this is a Windows formatted (NTFS) drive, by default, OS X will not see anything on it. If it is formatted FAT32, then OS X can access the files, like it does on my external 1TB drive with 8GB of iTunes music.
Once mounted on your desktop, open disk utility, select the drive name in the left column, and click the Info button. You are looking for the File System entry. If it is not NTFS, then under First Aid, click Verify the drive.

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I just got my first mac pro and I can't get the photos out of iPhotos moved on my hp external hard drive, I try export says unable, then I try to drag it from the desktop to the external hard drive but same problem. Thank you so much

I just got my first mac pro and I can't get the photos out of iPhotos and move them on my hp external hard drive, I try export says unable, then I try to drag it from the desktop to the external hard drive but same problem. what to do? Thank you so much

How is your external drive formatted? Use Disk Utility to check the volume format. If it is NTFS, you will need to reformat the HDD as exFAT in order to retain universal compatibility (RW to it on both Mac and Windows).

I can't get iPhoto to allow me to add a location to my photos. What am I doing wrong?

When transferring my photo library from a PC to my new Mac, I cannot add a location to them. All the other features work just fine but the location function is unresponsive. Anything I'm doing wrong? I'm new to Mac so its a strong possibility.

here are detailed instructions - http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2381
LN

Can not get my Envy 15 3040nr to recognise my USB connected external hard drive

Hi All,
Have recently upgraded my HP Envy 15 3040 nr to Windows 8. All good except it wont recognise my USB connected external hard drive. At first I thought my USB port(s) might be faulty as it did recognise the drive a few weeks back but now it wont. Tried connecting other USB devices and they worked no problem.
I have also recently upgraded the BIOS on my laptop and wonderd if this might be the root cause. All in all somewhat perplexed.
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Hi
In order to resolve the issue that I think that you should uninstall the Universal Serial Bus controller in Device manger by uninstalling all options under the USB controller.
Then restart the laptop and uninstall driver will be installed automatically.
Tell me all findings that external harddrive is detected or not.

My mac no longer recognizes file types on my external hard drive

I cannot preview files or open them directly by double clicking or dragging to the app in the dock. it just tells my application not found. I have to open them through the application.
any thoughts?

Hey lorrainefrommalibu,
Thanks for the question. I understand that your iOS devices are not being recognized by iTunes on OS X. The following article may help to resolve your issue:
iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for OS X - Apple Support
http://support.apple.com/TS1591
Follow these steps to resolve your issue:
If you haven't connected your iOS device to this computer before, unlock the device and tap Trust. Learn more about the Trust This Computer alert.
Restart your iOS device.
Restart your Mac.
Make sure that your Mac meets the minimum system requirements for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
Install software updates on your Mac.
If an iTunes update is available, apply the update.
Check USB connections. iOS devices need USB 2.0 to work properly. If you're not sure your Mac has USB 2.0 ports, check the computer's specifications.
Disconnect other USB devices and connect your device directly to a USB port on your Mac.
Try another USB cable.
Thanks,
Matt M.

How can i get mynew mac mini to use the drive in my old mac pro

When I first got my new mac mini it dosen't have an internal drive. So I hooked it up on the network and fire wire. I could use the superdrive in the mac pro just fine both itunes and the dvd player worked as they would with a internal drive. But now a couple of upgrade down loads later not so much. yes I can connect with screen share and can get the dvd player to play dvd's but still can't get itunes to use the superdrive. Iht exect disk icon in the apple menue bar use to open and close the super drive but now it reads "no disk" How can I get my mac mini to automaticly use the superdrive when i turn on the mac pro.
I've done all the easy things changing the order of start up and share settings and i sware it did work ok when i first hooked it up.

http://www.totalapps.net/mac/remote-disc-sharing-when-the-superdrive-doesn’t-wor k-2/
Mind you, booting off the external optical drive of another computer may not be practical because of the different operating system limitations of the computers. I would just purchase an external optical drive from http://www.macsales.com/ if you find it doesn't work.

HT4589 How can I get my Mac laptop FCPX Events Library to see my external drives? Yes it is formatted Mac-OS-Extended (Journaled)

How can I get my Mac laptop FCPX Events Library to see my external drives? Yes it is formatted Mac-OS-Extended (Journaled).

I do not seem to have that as an option. Attached is a screen shot with the gear popup open. I simply copied the event and projct folders from my desktop so I could contiue working while on a trip with my laptop.

I want to store movies on an SD disk, watch them on the way to Europe, then use the chip to record photos in my camera. I can't get the iPad mini to recognize the videos I've recorded.

I want to store movies on an SD disk, watch them on the way to Europe, then use the chip to record photos in my camera. I can't get the iPad mini to recognize the videos I've recorded.

I'm a bit lost - you first say
"The only file(s) I can sometimes get it to recognize are the ones shot with a camera onto an SD card"
then you say
" If I take an unused SD card and record video with my camera, it will see, and import the file to the Photo app."
In the first statement, aren't you using an SD card in the camera? And what do you mean by "unused SD card"? Cameras put their files in specific folders on a card, and your device only reads photos and video from those folders, not from anywhere else on the card.

My mac mini is supposed to have a 320 gb hard drive but I can only find a macintosh 160 gb hard drive,*** ?

My mac mini is supposed to have a 320 gb hard drive but I can only find a macintosh 160 gb hard drive,*** ? Ilooked up the specsonline and it surely says 320 gb

NVidia MCP79 AHCI:
Vendor:    NVidia
Product:    MCP79 AHCI
Link Speed:    3 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed:    1.5 Gigabit
Description:    AHCI Version 1.20 Supported
Hitachi HTS543216L9SA02:
Capacity:    160.04 GB (160,041,885,696 bytes)
Model:    Hitachi HTS543216L9SA02
Revision:    FB2AC53F
Serial Number:    100202FBE203BNJ09V5F
Native Command Queuing:    Yes
Queue Depth:    32
Removable Media:    No
Detachable Drive:    No
BSD Name:    disk0
Rotational Rate:    5400
Medium Type:    Rotational
Bay Name:    Lower
Partition Map Type:    GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status:    Verified
Volumes:
Capacity:    209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
Writable:    Yes
BSD Name:    disk0s1
Macintosh HD:
Capacity:    159.7 GB (159,697,911,808 bytes)
Available:    95.38 GB (95,378,182,144 bytes)
Writable:    Yes
File System:    Journaled HFS+
BSD Name:    disk0s2
Mount Point:    /

I want to put all my music onto an external hard drive. But I can't get it to put music on my itunes. The music list is completely empty and so is my IPOD.

I want to put all my music onto an external hard drive. But I can't get it to put music on my itunes. The music list is completely empty and so is my IPOD. How do I do this? I have a PC with Windows.

You say the music is not on the external HD, the music list (iTunes?) is empty, and it is not on the iPOd. Then where is the music you want to move to the external HD?
You can redownlaod iTunes purchases by:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store

Can i show and play music from my external hard drive in iTunes without adding it to my Mac hard drive?

I have more music than I can keep on my Macbook hard drive by over 200GB. I'm hoping to be able to show and play all music from my external hard drive in iTunes without having to add any of it to my Macbook Hard Drive

Hello B3NN13,
If you would like to add the music from your external hard drive to iTunes without copying it to the iTunes Library on your internal hard drive, you may find the following article helpful:
Add files to your library without adding them to your iTunes folder
When you add an item already on your computer to your iTunes library, iTunes places a copy of the file in your iTunes folder. The original file remains in its current location.
You can change this setting so that files are added to your iTunes library without being added to the iTunes folder. You might want to do this, for example, if you prefer to store video files on an external disk but still want to view them in iTunes.
Choose iTunes > Preferences, and click Advanced.
Deselect the checkbox next to “Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library.”
From now on, when you drag a file to your library or choose File > Add to Library, the item appears in iTunes, but the actual file isn’t copied or moved.
Tip: You can temporarily reverse this setting by holding down the Option key while you drag files to the iTunes window.
iTunes 12 for Mac: Change where your iTunes files are stored
Sincerely,
- Brenden

I have a new mini mac and i want to use my existing external hard drive but it needs to be reformated how do i do this without loosing all my old photos?

i have a new mini mac and i want to use my existing external hard drive but it needs to be reformated how do i do this without loosing all my old photos?

Formatting will erase the drive.
You need to copy the photo's to either your old computer, the Mac Mini or to a new external drive and then decide what to do with your existing external drive.
For example: You could use one External drive for Photo's and one external drive for Time Machine to backup both your Mac Mini and the Photo drive.

I am semi-retiring my old mac mini and want to use it as a hard drive for my macbook pro. Does anyone know how to do this?

I am semi-retiring my old mac mini and want to use it as a hard drive for my macbook pro. Does anyone know how to do this?

1. Remove the drives, install them in external enclosures.
2. Use a Firewire cable to connect to your computer. Boot the mini into Target Disk Mode - Transferring files between two computers using FireWire

Migrating music to an external hard drive for access by Windows & Mac

Hey folks
I recently migrated my collection of music to an external hard drive by:
1) changing the iTunes music folder location from the default (Music/iTunes/iTunes Music) to my external hard drive through iTunes Preferences.
2) Selecting "Consolidate library" from the Advanced drop-down menu.
Afterwards, I moved my library file to the same parent directory I put my iTunes music folder in on the external (in fact, I moved my entire iTunes folder excl the music folder which was obviously already on the hard drive). When I restarted iTunes I held down OPTION and then chose the library file on my external as the iTunes library file to be used. This was all done on a Mac.
No problems - all swell. But... I moved the library file to the external because I want to be able to use the external with multiple computers from which I can import music that will automatically be copied to the same folder (the music folder on my external) and managed accordingly. When I tried to open the library from my Windows laptop at home nothing happened. The library file I copied from my Mac had no extension, so I renamed it .itl so the Windows version of iTunes would pick it up, but selecting it as the new library did nothing.
Q1: Are iTunes library files (I assume always .itl's?) interchangeable between Mac and Windows? If not this might explain why the library didn't load up.
Q2: Is my method wrong? Is there a different procedure for getting multiple copies of iTunes on different computers and operating systems to all use the same library, saved on an external hard drive, which itself references music from the same external hard drive? Is this goal even possible?
Q3: Is it possible to have 2 or more libraries for a given installation of iTunes?
Bonus Q4: How is the album artwork saved? When I consolidated my music on the external, did this move the artwork across with it (integrated with each music file?) or was it still sitting on my Mac hard drive in the Album Artwork directory? I have since moved this folder to my external as well, when I moved the entire directory including library file across, and album artwork is visible when the library is open on my Mac, but I don't know whether its getting the images from the hard drive or the external hard drive.
Okay last one - I swear! Q5: When I couldn't get the laptop version of Itunes to open my Mac library file, I imported all my music into the default laptop library which references the music files still all located on the external. Considering the 130GB of music I'm dealing with, this took a while, but what took even longer was "Processing album artwork", which dragged on for ages. What is actually happening during this procedure - is iTunes accessing an online database to find the artwork, or is it working with the artwork already processed and saved in the album on the external?
Thanks very much in advance! Sorry for all the questions but I'd like to crack this thing once and for all.

The procedure for sharing a library between a Mac and Wintel PC on an external drive is quite simple. I did this myself so that I would have my music available to me when I worked in my lab.
First before you transfer anything to your external hard drive, the music library on your Mac should already be consolidated. Once that is done, transfer the iTunes folder (./Music/iTunes) to the external drive. Unless your music files are in a folder outside the iTunes folder—for instance, my music files are on a separate, larger volume on my Mac from the iTunes folder that is on the boot volume—copying your iTunes folder will put everything that iTunes needs onto the external drive.
Now you have two options for using your library on two machines. The first, which I prefer, is to leave your Mac’s iTunes library in place and use the external strictly for the Wintel PC. In this instance, you would need to add the .itl extension to the iTunes Library database file. When you attach your external to the Wintel PC at work and choose the library, your should be taken into iTunes with your music library intact.
In this instance, your external drive can also serve as a backup of your iTunes library because it is highly improbable that both your external drive and Mac Pro’s iTunes folders will go bad simultaneously. For backup purposes, you will need to place another copy of your iTunes Library database file on the external drive, without the extension, for your Mac; I have had issues with Macs recognizing .itl files. Of note, the content of your library on the external drive will be the same if you need to recover from the external drive, but as the Wintel PC will not update the database file without the .itl extension, any settings you change or playlists you add in Windows will not be transferred to the Mac unless you recover the Mac’s library from the iTunes Music Library.xml file that the PC would have kept current.
In the second instance, if you wish to run your library off of the external drive for both your Mac and Wintel PC, you would follow the same procedure described above, but you would need to have both an iTunes Library (Mac) and iTunes Library.itl (Windows) database files. Effectively, this would mean that once a change is made on either system, it will not be reflected on the other. As you are most likely to add new songs via your home computer, you will need to replace the .itl file with a copy of the Mac database file whenever you add music, playlists, etc.
Given the storage capacity of my Power Mac G5 and the logistics involved in managing a library stored solely on an external volume going between a Mac and PC, I find the second option to be more trouble than it is worth. For me, it is easier to maintain my Mac’s iTunes library then copy the iTunes folder over to the external drive overnight when I wish to make any updates (e.g., new content, playlists, etc.) available to my work computer. In the morning, I just add the .itl extension to database file before disconnecting the external drive and taking it to work.
Now that your first two questions are answered, yes you can have more than one library, but doing so is poor database management. You should have all of your content in a single database and use iTunes to separate content. iTunes already separates music, movies, podcasts, audiobooks, etc., but further division of content is up to the user. iTunes has had playlists and folders for a few versions now, so it is quite easy to organize your library’s content in as simple or complex a folder/playlist structure as you please.
How album artwork is saved depends on how you acquired your music. Music you purchase from the iTunes Store has its artwork placed into a separate artwork database built in the Album Artwork folder in your iTunes folder. I believe that the same occurs if you allow iTunes to find and import album covers. If you rip CDs or acquire music from other sources, you manually add the artwork, in which case the images are stored in the music files.
Lastly, when iTunes has to build a library it can take a while. Your library is twice as large as mine and on a slow(er) laptop drive the time to built a library will be excessive. Unless iTunes is crashing or freezing, let it runs its course until the library build is completed. Also, if you have copied your music files to your laptop’s internal hard drive, you should not leave iTunes referencing the external drive. In the worst case, you would want to copy your iTunes folder from the external to the laptop’s internal drive’s default iTunes folder location. Remove the iTunes Library file and allow iTunes on your laptop to rebuild the library from the XML file.

Why can't I simply drag music from my external hard drive to my ipod classic?

Why can't I simply drag music from my external hard drive to my ipod classic using my mac?

downpat wrote:
So after I get my music put on my computer, then moved to my ipod, do I have to delete music from itunes to free up space?
Not a good idea.
What you could do, is have the Library content on the external hard drive and simply tell your iTunes programme to look on the hard drive for your music etc.. However, once you set that up, that hard drive needs to be connected and ready to read, before you start the iTunes programme. If it isn't ready, iTunes will simply go back to the default location for the music, find nothing and then you'll be back here saying that you've lost your Library.

I can't get my Mac mini to recognize my music on my external hard drive. What am I doing wrong?

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