ITunes Music on an external Drive

I am trying to setup Itunes on a PC using an external Drive. I'm using windows 7. I created the Itunes library on my office computer and in the preferences area I saved the folder to the external drive.
When I brought the folder home I directed Itunes on my home computer to look for the folder on the external drive but I can't get Itunes to read the library.
When I look at the folder on the drive I can see all the music but I just can't get Itunes to read the folder. I created the folder in windows not my mac and the drive was formatted for the PC not a mac.
Can anyone please tell me how I get windows to read the library from the external drive. PLEASE HELP.

File > Add folder to library and select the top level folder with music on the external.

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see this
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ITunes Music Files on External Drive

I have an iBook and am running short on internal hard disk space primarily because of a large number of music files (~24GB). I would like to move all my music files to an external disk to free up space on my internal HD. How would I do that with iTunes and make sure any music I import or download/purchase goes to my external hard drive?

Interesting thing happened when I moved all my iTunes folder files to the external HD. Even with the EHD connected, iTunes did not display my music library. I had to import the music files from the EHD. Then I found that iTunes had placed the Album Artwork, iTunes Library database file and iTunes Music Library.xml file in the default location on my internal HD even though the path in iTunes Preferences links to the EHD. Now when I open iTunes the library displays but the actual audio files are on the EHD. I'm wondering where a purchased, downloaded audio file will go. What's up here?

Was able to transfer itunes music from an external drive to a computer, but cannot listen to it without external drive being connected. There are "!" next to the transferred music.

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1. Quit iTunes
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More info:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
Or if you prefer a more complicated explanation:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive

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To move your iTunes music to an external drive...
1 Quit iTunes.
2 Move the entire iTunes folder including music to
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Hey idw3,
Welcome to Apple Support Communities, and thanks for the question. Follow the instructions on this article to move your iTunes Media folder to an external hard drive:
iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
Regards,
David

ITunes Music on an External Hard Drive

Sometime ago I put, or as you will see, thought I'd put, all my itunes music on an external hard drive, I used the instructions as outlined on the Apple website, and it all SEEMED to work fine, except that when I choose "organise library" or as it used to be known "consolidate", itunes copies about 300 or so tracks and thats it, but I have over 10,000 songs, vids and podcasts. Also if I go into Spotlight/Finder, there are a lot of iTunes files on BOTH the external hard drive AND in the itunes folder on the INTERNAL hard drive, now I'm worried about copying one from the other in case I lose some stuff, any ideas?

apple-lovin-it wrote:
Sometime ago I put, or as you will see, thought I'd put, all my itunes music on an external hard drive, I used the instructions as outlined on the Apple website, and it all SEEMED to work fine, except that when I choose "organise library" or as it used to be known "consolidate", itunes copies about 300 or so tracks and thats it, but I have over 10,000 songs, vids and podcasts. Also if I go into Spotlight/Finder, there are a lot of iTunes files on BOTH the external hard drive AND in the itunes folder on the INTERNAL hard drive, now I'm worried about copying one from the other in case I lose some stuff, any ideas?
check if iTunes is pointed to the desired location in preferences > advanced like so

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Was the media solely on the external library? If so, it is likely that iTunes was started at some point with the external drive unaccessible. Simply point iTunes to the correct library location. To do this, close iTunes. Hold <SHIFT> and launch iTunes. When prompted to find library or create a new one, select the find option and point iTunes to where the iTuneslibrary.itl file is at on your computer (or external drive).

ITunes Music on an external Drive

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