Importing Itunes from my external hard drive

I had a Macbook with my itunes music on it. Unfortunately, it was owned by my employers, so I had to return it when I changed jobs. I put all of my music files onto an external hard drive. I got my new Dell computer and am trying to import my music from my external hard drive to my new dell. The message reads that "The song cannot be used because the original file can't be found. Would you like to find it?" Interestingly, the music plays when my external hard drive is plugged in. Can anyone help me? My music is all legit....no illegal downloads....its all from my own cd library or itunes. I am so frustrated

It appears that you did not have "Copy to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" checked in Edit>>Preferences>>Advanced>>General when you added the tracks to your library.
(It might as well to look and see how you have this set).
So the library just contains a pointer to the external drive - so the tracks can only be found if the drive is pugged in.
If I have guessed right, consolidating your library will copy the files across into your iTunes Music folder. But be aware that it will do the same thing to any other music in your library but not in the iTunes Music folder.

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Importing ITunes FROM my external hard drive to my Library

Need to know how to IMPORT ITunes FROM my external hard drive to my ITunes library... as of right now...all it lets me do is import one by one...big pain.
any assistance or advice is appreciated...

You should probably post in itunes forum, not iphone forum for more answers.

I imported files from an external hard drive to Itunes on a new computer. they imported & play fine, but the ratings & playlists are gone & i am unable to update any info. I found a file name playlist on old drive & imported now most files are missing!

I imported files from an external hard drive to Itunes on a new computer. they imported & play fine, but the ratings & playlists are gone & i am unable to update any info. I found a file name playlist on old drive & imported now most files are missing! Help!

Can you locate the iTunes Library.itl file on the old drive? Ideally you would have simply copied over the entire iTunes folder structure from <User's Music> on the old computer into <User's Music> on the new one to transfer the library will all playlists, ratings, play counts etc. intact.
tt2

How to import music from an external hard drive to my itunes on my computer?

how can import music from an external hard drive that i saved my itunes music to. i dragged the music from my hard drive to the itunes on my computer but the music does not play from my itunes. it does however play on my ipod. it gives me an error that the original can not be found and do i wish to locate it. i am thinking that i did not drag the right file or all of the files necessary .thanks. kevin

To import music into your iTunes library on the computer go to iTunes>Help>iTunes Help>Add items to iTunes and follow the instructions

HT1727 how do I transfer my iTunes from an external hard drive to a different computer?

How do I transfer my iTunes from an external hard drive to a pc?

If you don't have all of your music files within the iTunes Music folder structure, simply moving all of your music to a new location will not result in your iTunes library automatically updating the file paths to all of your songs appropriately. If you have a few other locations in which you store your music, you can take the ExportImport script turingtest2 wrote, make the modifications below, export the results, paste them into Microsoft Word or Excel, do a Find and Replace with the correct file location, and then import the new locations. To use the script, follow turingtest2's instructions on this thread as posted on Dec 19, 2012 6:28 AM.
Note that the modifications, while they worked for me, show my lack of experience with VB as the progress bar will no longer work. Definitely be sure to back up your iTunes library file before executing the script with the below modifications, but doing this for 3500 items didn't even take 2 minutes for the script to run.
Line 89 was:        Prog=True
Line 89 is now:     Prog=False
* I had to do this because otherwise the progress bar was erroring out. So, i just turned it off.
Lines 164-165 were:
'File.WriteLine "<#>" & .Location           ' Not so useful if working with missing tracks
'File.WriteLine "<Album>" & .Album
Lines 164-165 are now three lines (the middle one is the only uncommented line):
'File.WriteLine "<#>" & .Location           ' Not so useful if working with missing tracks
File.WriteLine "<Location>" & .Location
'File.WriteLine "<Album>" & .Album
Finally, insert this whole block around line 270 so that it looks similar to the others:
        Case "<location>"
          If T.Location<>Value Then                ' Don't update if value won't change
            T.Location=Value
            U=U+1
            Trace T,"Updated Location"
          Else
            V=V+1
          End If
          'If Trace Then MsgBox "Updated Location"
Note that I had to comment the very last line as well or else the program errored out. You won't be able to trace the results either.
Just thought I'd share this in case anyone else needed something like this.

Due to a broken laptop I've loaded my itunes from an external hard drive my itunes wont play unless i leave the the exteral hard drive connected. what is the problem?

My laptop working Vista H Premium broke, I now have laptop working Mindows 7 H Premium. I reloaded my itunes from an external hard drive but they wont play without the external hard drive left plugged in

The media is on the external drive. If you want to be able to play it with the extrenal drive disconnected, this will require moving or copying the media off the external drive to the computer's hard drive.
Importing the media via iTunes may automatically accomplish this, depending on the settings in iTunes.

How do i import bootcamp from a external hard drive

Hello, I have a 2007 24 inch 2.8ghz 7.1 intel imac, I have just upgraded my internal hard drive from a 500gb seagate barracuda to a 1.5tb western digital caviar green. I have a external usb 3.0 sata hard drive enclosure that has the original 500gb hard drive in it. I have succesfully imported my mac osx from the external 500gb drive to the new internal 1.5tb drive. I have partitioned the new internal hard drive for bootcamp but I can not figure out how or if I can import bootcamp from the external to the internal drive. When I boot up it shows my new mac osx hdd and the external usb mac osx hdd but no bootcamp. I know I cant boot windows from an external hard drive but can I import it from a external hard drive? Thank you in advance, Dave.

Try this link, http://www.libbyh.com/2008/01/17/cloning-my-boot-camp-partition-to-a-new-hard-dr ive/

How to Play iTunes from a external Hard Drive?

Is it possible to run iTunes from an external hard drive so that I dont use up the space on my labtop? For example, store all my music files on the External and run it through iTunes.

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.
Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307074
Patrick

When loading songs into iTunes, from my external hard drive. It seems to be copying the music onto my MacBook Air.

When loading songs into iTunes, from my external hard drive. It seems to be copying the music onto my MacBook Air.
How do i have iTunes only read the songs from my hard drive, rather then copying them?

You may find these Links of Interest...
Moving iTunes Media Folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
http://macmost.com/moving-your-itunes-media-to-an-external-drive.html

Can i download and run itunes from an external hard drive

can i download and run itunes from an external hard drive?

The iTunes application should be on the boot drive but you can keep the iTunes library on an external.
hold Shift when launching iTune sand select Create library and select the external.
This will create an iTunes folder on the external with all the library files and all media will also go into this folder.

How do I import songs from my external hard drive to itunes

I have all of my music saved on my external hard drive (75 gigs worth) that I need to import to itunes. My computer only has 40 gigs worth of space, so I really want to leave the music on the external drive and just link the library to it. How can I do this?

Niel,
I had to reformat my Windows partition and I backed up all of my iTunes to my external hard drive and I need to transfer them back. Also when I backed them up they were created in 8.0+ version. Would I need to get iTunes to the most current version or would it be fine if I didn't. Thanks.

Importing music FROM an external hard drive

My dance studio has an external hard drive with over 15,000 songs in MP3 format, and I would like to be able to put some of those songs on an iPod. My problem: I do not want double copies of my 15,000 songs (one copy in the external hard drive and one copy in iTunes) as that would take up A LOT of computer space. Space I don't have. I have recently installed iTunes on the studio computer (preferring the program for my personal music), is there a way to import the songs from my external hard drive into my iTunes library with out making two copies of each song (in different formats as explained earlier)? Can you "tell" iTunes to find its music in an external hard drive?

Check your iTunes Preferences. Go to Edit>Preferences>Advanced and see if you have "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" checked. If you haven't then all you did was add a reference to the original location (the external drive) to iTunes without copying the song files them selves. With the external drive disconnected iTunes can no longer locate the file to play from. If that's the case you'd need to delete the songs from iTunes, change preference and add the songs over again.

I recently restored my laptop and also iTunes from an external hard drive, but when I play songs, it says the original file could not be found. How do I locate and fix this?

I recently restored my laptop with Windows 7 and imported my iTunes library from my external hard drive. When I try to play songs, it says it cannot and that the original file could not be located. How do I fix this?

Put the files back where iTunes expects them to be.

Managing music and iTunes from an external hard drive

I have a large quantity of music that I have downloaded to an external hard drive. I used Windows Media to download the music to the hard drive. What I want to do is keep my music and photos on the hard drive but be able to access the files from my laptop (Mac Book Pro). I don't want to take up the hard disc space on the laptop, so how do I make sure that all future cd's imported go the the hard drive (and not necessarily to the "iTunes" folder), are stored as the individual cd/artist name, and are then easily retrieved by iTunes for burning?
Scott

Niel,
You've got me most of the way there! I redirected the iTunes Music Folder location to the external hard drive, and specified the folder on the hard drive that includes all the previously ripped/downloaded music. Then I did the "consolidate library" command, which was successful in putting the minimal music already in my iTunes library onto the external hard drive. Finally, to get all the music from my external hard drive into the Library, I deselected the "copy files to the iTunes music folder when adding to the library" and then "add to library" the folder that is on the hard drive containing all the music I want to be able to browse and select to put on my iPod. Unfortunately, only some of the music came across. It copied about 20 gigs of the music, of which there is 135 gigs of music to copy...???
All I'm trying to do here is maintain a large volume of music (and eventually photos) on an external hard drive, and be able to use iTunes to access the music for placement on my iPod. What have I missed in my implementation here?
Many thanks for you kind advice and help! Scott

Cannot copy itunes from one external hard drive to another.

I have been using an external hard drive for storing my itunes and iphoto for a while now. I have never experienced any issue copying it to a larger drive for back up. My current drive is only 80 gigs (LaCie) and is almost out of space. I bought a new g-tech 500gig mini drive to replace it. Every time that I try to move the files from the old drive to the new one, I get the following error message 10 gigs into the transfer-
[You can’t copy “Music” because it has the same name as another item on the destination volume, and that volume doesn’t distinguish between upper- and lowercase letters in filenames.]
There is nothing on the new drive. I even took the iphoto folder off to make sure there was nothing on it to cause this message.
Is this an external drive issue or a Finder issue? I had no issue moving the iphoto library onto the new drive, fwiw...

I am getting exactly the same problem. It's just with the music folder. I dont get the problem copying other folders over. It gets about 22gb into copying 100gb from one external hard drive to another then I get the error message "You can’t copy “Music” because it has the same name as another item on the destination volume, and that volume doesn’t distinguish between upper- and lowercase letters in filenames." So I tried just copying the itunes folder and I still get the same message. Any advice welcome.

Importing Itunes from my external hard drive

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