Itunes can't locate original files for songs on my external harddrive

I recently added my music collection to a new computer from my external harddrive. At first everything worked great, now when i open itunes and try to play songs that are located on the harddrive the following error message pops up "The Song "xxxx" could not be used because the original file could not be located. Would you like to locate it?" I am able to locate the files one at a time, but i have over 12000 songs. I am wondering if there is a way to make itunes recognize that all of the songs it is looking for are located on the external harddrive. Any/all help is appreciated.

1)if you have an ipod than you are in luck. plug it in.
2)go to my computer and select your ipod.
3)click on search and DO NOT TYPE ANYTHING IN OR CLICK ON ANY THING.
4)you will be on the first page with the little charactor in the bottom left hand side of the page.
5)just click "OK" NOTHING ELSE!!!!!!!!
6)then click on search
7)when it is done searching, select all your music and PUT IT IN A FOLDER. any folder will be fine.
8)select all of the music in the new folder and drag and drop it in to itunes.
9)that is it but if you have any questons email me at [email protected]

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ITunes Can't Locate Original File - 7.7 error?

hoping someone out there can help me....
basically, I have 2 external hard drives. the first one is a 160GB hard drive, the second one is a 250GB hard drive. initially I had all of my music on the 160GB, but when it got too full I copied everything over on the 250GB drive, so I could add more music to it. everything's been working fine for 2 years on the 250GB drive until this weekend when all of the sudden, iTunes is now looking for the music on the old drive again, saying that it can't find the original file. the songs are all on the new drive, but for some reason it will only look for them on the old one. So - if I have BOTH drives on, everything works fine. If I turn the old drive off, iTunes can't locate 3/4 of my music. it's frustrating because all of the old stuff is on the new drive but iTunes won't see it. I've even tried copying some of the stuff from the old drive onto the new drive and itunes still seems to be looking for it the old drive even when I change the pathway to the new drive in the general preferences.
the only thing I can think of is:
1) buy a new larger drive and cut and paste everything onto it. not sure that that would fix it.
2) reinstall itunes, but I'm afraid of losing my settings and all of the movies,
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anyone have any advice? is it a library file issue?

Yeah,
I've upgraded to 7.7 and have a large library of tracks on an external drive. I added them manually to the library - rather tedious, it took me about 3 days!
I was careful to choose the iTunes folder in the correct location and I chose to uncheck the "keep iTunes organised" box as it messes up where things are kept. I'm now starting to get ! against about 25% of the library. I really don't want to manually re-direct it to about 5,000 tracks. Is there any way this can be done en masse or is this a 7.7 bug?
This is a real pain. Can anyone help?
curly

For some reason itunes can't find original file for music. If I have purchased from Itunes do I have to re-purchase?

I keep losing music from my library because "itunes cannot locate original file". Why does my computer lose this? If I have purchased in itunes, can I copy again for free? how? Thanks.

kenfromoshawa wrote:
I keep losing music from my library because "itunes cannot locate original file". Why does my computer lose this?
If you are losing music which can mean the database in iTunes is not stable. Maybe you should do under File > Library > Organize Library > Consolidate Files.
Thanks and I did find the link, it now states that they have been downloaded but how do I copy thise files into my itunes or how does my itunes find those files? Again thank you for your help
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tt2

Itunes can't find original file for many songs

when i try to play certain songs in itunes, a box comes up saying, "the song could not be used b/c the original file could not be found." it happens to random songs and just started a few days ago. why is this happening?? help!
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Something has happened, either you have moved the songs, changed the drive letter there on OR antivirus is "Playing around" with iTunes.
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Message was edited by: birdman829

Hey, make sure that your extnal hard drive is connected. Start
iTunes. No need to connect your iPod at this stage.Go into
Edit - Prefs, select the advanced tab at the top and
ensure that the path to iTunes music folder location is
set to your ext. hard drive. e.g. E:\exthd\iTunes\music. Always
ensure that your external hard disk is connected before
you start iTunes otherwise iTunes will get confused.
The 4500 songs should now be seen by iTunes.
The odd few albums/songs that are located on your c:\drive
will now have a circle next to them, indicating that the
original files cannot be found. Simply move these to the
external hard disk and re-import the individual
songs/Albums again.

TS1584 I had my iTunes libray on my old PC, just transferred to my new PC, downloaded iTunes, and my library is there, but can't play songs, says can't locate original files?

I had my iTunes library on my old Dell Inspiron, transferred all info to my new HP Pavilion PC, downloaded iTunes and my library is there, but when I try to play songs, it says can't play because can't locate the original files...how can I activate the songs to play? The iTunes library is also in my Windows media file, and the songs will play in there, but I set iTunes as my default music manager and want the songs activated in my iTunes library so I can play them and sync my iPod. Help? Thanks.

This happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, or that the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout,or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
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See also Getting iTunes & Windows Media Player to play nicely
tt2

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With no backups, and the songs deleted, they are lost. 'iTunes in the Cloud' might enable you to re-download songs you had purchased, but I doubt this works on Leopard, which your signature says you have.

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iTunes forum has the answers.

ITunes can't locate music files THAT I CAN

Last night, when I opened iTunes, each song I clicked on gave me a "!" next to it, followed by this message:
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Well, I know exactly where the song is, which is where all the songs are and have been for some time on my LaCie external drive. They are, in fact, still there. When I go to a music file through the Finder and double-click the file name, it plays--through iTunes--and is recognized by iTunes thereafter. I could do this for all 2,500 songs, but I have a life to live in the next three to four years.
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anyway, i'll try you suggestion for the "option" on launch... i had to replace my external drive which finally died (from 2001)... so now i need to relink the files back to iTunes, hopefully not manually since i have about 2500 files to fix... i did copy all the files from the internal disc to the new external drive and merged the libraries, then tried using the iTunes preferences to point to the folder in the external drive... but that didn't work in my case... it still sees 1/2 of the files still in the internal drive and still has "!" for all the files on the external drive...
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i very much want to keep all the metadata... so i'm hesitent to experiment blindly too much since i don't want to do something that "imports" all the songs, but looses all the metadata... in my case, it would be easier to relink the files manually than attempt to recreate all the metadata...
if i find a solution besides just manually relinking files, i'll let you know...
i expect there is a way to solve this...
luck to us both-

Itunes can't locate my files

All my songs on Itunes display an exclamation point and message comes up song can't be used because original file cannot be located. this occurs even for my purchased music. Is there a fix or a way to get my music back?

The "missing file" thing happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, or that the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout,or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
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Alternatively, as long as you can find a location holding the missing files, then you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes.
tt2

ITunes can't locate some files after HD swap

I've just transferred my files from an old external HD, to a new one. these files included some music from my iTunes Library. this is a hassle - but i've got my music split up into two parts on my internal drive, and the rest on an external drive...
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I also tried moving the iTunes Library and the .xml file out of ~/Music/iTunes/ folder, then started up iTunes again (resulting in an empty library). then i tried to Import that .xml file - but i got the error:
"Some of the songs in the file "iTunes Music Library.xml" were not imported because they could not be found."
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and sorry for the long post - i hope i've explained this properly. just ask if you're a bit confused. :P
EDIT>>
okay - i think i've found my problem...
i had re-named my old drive, after i changed the name of my new drive to what the old drive previously was, so i didn't get confused. but i must have opened up iTunes along the way somewhere... i've checked the .xml file and some of the file paths have the name from my old, re-named HD. i've been doing a find and replace in TextEdit - so hopefully that will fix it all.

There is a better way to do this: use the File > Add To Library command. But first you should open iTunes Prefs > Advanced and deselect the "copy files to iTunes Music folder..." option and the "keep iTunes music folder organize" option.
After you have done this use the Add To Library command to get iTunes to recognize your music again.

Itunes can't locate original files for songs on my external harddrive

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