I loaded iTunes on a new laptop. I copied and pasted my albums to a 4G stick and down loaded them to the new laptop. Placing them in, Libraries – Music – iTunes and than in Itunes used File – add file to library. So far so good. For what ever reason one o

Question

I loaded iTunes on a new laptop. I copied and pasted my albums to a 4G stick and down loaded them to the new laptop. Placing them in, Libraries – Music – iTunes and than in Itunes used File – add file to library. So far so good. For what ever reason one of the CDs would not load onto the stick. I got the orginal CD and loaded directly to Itunes. Now when I look in  Libraries – Music – iTunes it’s not there but it is in and plays in iTunes. What should I have done or should I be doing? Thanks.

Answer 1

It's not a unique situation - happens all the time, smaller hard drives getting filled up.
It's also easy to fix. I just moved my itunes content to a bigger hard drive.
First I made a backup of the itunes database file - iTunes Library.itl. Just in case anything went wrong.
Nothing did go wrong, but I'd have it in case anything DID go wrong. That file holds ratings, playcounts, Date Added, and other metadata.
Second, in itunes change the preferences > advanced tab to tell itunes to put everything on G:
Set the itunes folder location to something like G:Media or G:iTunes
This will affect all FUTURE additions to itunes and not do anything to the existing locations.
Make sure the checkbox for "Keep itunes organized" is NOT checked. I also left the "Copy files when adding" unchecked.
Third, to move all the files to G: without itunes losing the paths, run the File > Library > Organize > Consolidate command. This will need to run a while, so be patient as it copies all the files to the new G: location. This does NOT delete the originals. You will have to do that.
Fourth, make sure everything in itunes is OK and you can play stuff in your library. If you're really cautious you can run a script to check for missing/dead tracks.