ITunes not finding music on external hard drive! Help!

My music is on my external hard drive and for quite some time now, whenever I want to sync my iPod, I've had to manually tell iTunes where each and every song is--this gets annoying very quickly. I have the preferences set so iTunes should know where my music is, but each time I open the program up, I have to tell it where the songs are... I turn on the hard drive and THEN open iTunes. I'm not sure what else to try.

I was going to ask that, but I won't Small point though, not only must it be plugged in but the drive must be "ready" as well. If it's still running up the hard drive to full speed, it isn't ready.
In addition, the external drive must have the same drive letter allocated to it as before. If, for any reason, your laptop gives the external drive the drive letter E the first time, but drive letter D on the subsequent occasion, then once again, iTunes will fail to find the Library as it's "on a different drive" (letter).
Various things can transpire to cause the drive letter to be different; other deivces such as cameras, scanners, printers, or even memory card readers are all assigned a drive letter when plugged in, usually on a first come, first served basis. Perhaps your laptop has some quirk that means it decides on a different drive letter.
As a test, make a note of which drive letter has been used before you power off. Then check the next time iTunes fails to find the Library whether the drive has been given the same letter as before.

Similar Messages

  • ITunes not finding library on external hard drive

    I have my iTunes installed on my external hard drive and that is where all of my music is stored.  Every time I open iTunes it does not "remember" that my music is supposed to be saved on my external, not my laptop.  I have to "add" my external to the library again and change the location of my music to my external drive.  This is EXTREMELY annoying because I have a lot of music and this LITERALLY takes mulitple days, as well as the fact that it ruins all of my playlists and ratings.  What can be done to solve this problem?

    I was going to ask that, but I won't Small point though, not only must it be plugged in but the drive must be "ready" as well. If it's still running up the hard drive to full speed, it isn't ready.
    In addition, the external drive must have the same drive letter allocated to it as before. If, for any reason, your laptop gives the external drive the drive letter E the first time, but drive letter D on the subsequent occasion, then once again, iTunes will fail to find the Library as it's "on a different drive" (letter).
    Various things can transpire to cause the drive letter to be different; other deivces such as cameras, scanners, printers, or even memory card readers are all assigned a drive letter when plugged in, usually on a first come, first served basis. Perhaps your laptop has some quirk that means it decides on a different drive letter.
    As a test, make a note of which drive letter has been used before you power off. Then check the next time iTunes fails to find the Library whether the drive has been given the same letter as before.

  • ITunes can't find music on external hard drive Help!

    We moved my friend's iTunes music to an external hard drive. Everything was working fine until this week. Somehow the location of the music got changed back to her C drive. I redid the location but now every song has the exclamation mark. I would trash the music folder on the external drive and have her import the songs again from her DVD back ups but she has over 4,000 songs. Any other way to do this? I'm a Mac person so please explain the PC steps clearly. She is running Windows Vista.
    Thanks for any help you can offer.

    Somehow the location of the music got changed back to her C drive.
    Because iTunes was started with the external drive not plugged in or not online and ready.
    I redid the location but now every song has the exclamation mark
    Select all the songs in iTunes, right click - Get info.

  • Helping iTunes find music on external hard drive

    Issue on a PC with Windows XP.
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    I run iTunes entirely from an external hard drive... What I did at first was consolidated my Library to that drive and made a new folder for "my tunes" When I had to format my drive, due to a virus, I then installed iTunes on my external drive, and ran from there. It's great, I don't worry about space, I always know where my files are, and it is so easy to use!

  • Moving iTunes Library and Music to External Hard Drive...Possible?

    I want to transfer my iTunes Library to an external hard drive. Is this possible and what are the pitfalls, if any?
    Thanks
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    Yes it's quite possible, that's how I have mine set up, and Moving iTunes Music will tell you how to go about it.
    Pitfalls? Can't really think of any.
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  • Will Not Find Library on external hard drive

    Ok ,I have done everything according to the book, moved my itunes library on my external drive,(It all there)when I open itunes nothing there, so I created a alias of it (the library) and put it were the original was (that I Trashed) and still nothing,one thing I don't understand is if there is no folder in my user/music folder, when I open itunes it automatically puts one there, why? so what am I doing wrong ?
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    Hi,
    You've missed something out or else iTunes wouldn't be creating empty Library files. It only does that if it can't find the moved Library.
    Is your external disk connected and showing in Finder before you launch iTunes?
    Double check the instructions - a lot of people have used them to move their Library with no problems.
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    Colin R.

  • ITunes can not find my music on external hard drive

    Had to redo my hard drive; had all music on external hard drive; copied iTunes folder onto external hard drive. Now that my desktop hard drive is clean, and new iTunes downloaded, it can not find my music on the external drive which I have always used. Is there some setting I am missing, do I have to copy music onto CPU?

    Hold the SHIFT key while launching iTunes. You will get the option to navigate to the iTunes folder on your external drive. In the iTunes folder point it to the iTunes Library.itl file.

  • Old laptop died, got latest itunes on new laptop and recovered all music from external hard drive but ipad not recognised as device when plugged in? Do i reset my ipad2!!!

    Old laptop died, got latest itunes on new laptop and recovered all music from external hard drive but ipad2 not being recognised as a device when plugged in so can't sync? Do i reset my ipad2?!!!! Its only taken 7 months to get to this point.
    My ipad is set to sync via wifi but it is still trying to look for my old laptop which has been trashed..but i have deauthorised it and removed it from my account and still not recognised.
    Please help (an extreme novice to Apple products)

    Sync Your iOS Device with a New Computer Without Losing Data
    http://www.howtogeek.com/104298/sync-your-ios-device-with-a-new-computer-without -losing-data/
    iPad not appearing in iTunes
    http://www.apple.com/support/ipad/assistant/itunes/
    iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Mac OS X
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1591
    iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Windows
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1538
    IOS: Syncing with iTunes
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1386
    Apple - Support - iPad - Syncing
    http://www.apple.com/support/ipad/syncing/
     Cheers, Tom

  • My computer was totally destroyed & I do not have backup or external hard drive with my iTunes library. Will I be able to access my iTunes library when I purchase a new computer? It was the only computer authorized to play library.

    My computer was totally destroyed & I do not have backup or external hard drive with my saved iTunes library from it. That was the only computer authorized to play library. I do not have an iPod or iPhone with any of that library (which has over $2K in music purchases & over 5K in songs I ripped). Will I be able to access my iTunes library when I purchase a new computer?

    You should be able to access your past iTunes purchases. You'll need to re-rip your CDs See: HT2519 - Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store.
    See also this backup tip so you don't get caught out again.
    tt2

  • Itunes will not store in an external hard drive

    I use an external hard drive to store my music.
    The last few CDs we have put onto itunes do not appear in the external hard drive, why?

    Hello compsec1951,
    It sounds like the content may have been saved in the default iTunes folder location in the Music folder.
    Use this article to determine how iTunes is setup and where it is saving the new content. While it may be accessing the library on the external drive, it may be saving new media to a different location.
    Where are my iTunes files located?
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
    Mac OS X: Click the iTunes menu and choose Preferences.
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  • I moved all my music from c: drive(because it was full) to an external harddrive and now itunes can't find any of my music. Is there a way to get Itunes to find music on external drive without having to place all the music back onto the c: drive? Thanks

    I moved all my music from c: drive(because it was full) to an external harddrive and now itunes can't find any of my music. Is there a way to get Itunes to find music on external drive without having to place all the music back onto the c: drive? Thanks

    Hopefully you moved the entire iTunes Media (or iTunes Music) folder to a new path on your external drive. Copy your iTunes library folder out to the root of the external drive, e.g. X:\iTunes (where X: is your external drive), then move the media folder inside it. Hold down shift as you start iTUnes and keep holding untila asked to choose or create a library. Choose the library at X:\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl. Should all be good.
    Failing that, download and run my FindTracks script and point it at the new location of your media folder.
    tt2

  • ITunes library stored on an external hard drive which is connected to my airport extreme, I wish to share my iTunes library over my network, I can do this with my laptop, but not with my iPad, can anyone tell me if it is possible

    I have my iTunes library stored on an external hard drive which is connected to my airport extreme, I wish to share my iTunes library over my network, I can do this with my laptop, but not with my iPad, can anyone tell me if it is possible

    You can't connect directly to the external drive, but should be able to use iTunes Home Sharing via the laptop.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH1453

  • Can you save your itunes and songs onto an external hard drive so that incase your computer crashes you will still have all your music?

    Can you save your itunes and songs onto an external hard drive so that incase your computer crashes you will still have all your music?

    The procedures below are for "moving" your library but as long as you don't delete it from your internal drive you are basically backing up.
    iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
    Simple answer:  Copy your whole iTunes folder to the external drive.  For subsequent backups you might want to learn about cloning and using a tool that only does incremental backups of recently changed items rather than copying all your files each time.

  • Time Machine appears to be doing back-ups, but they do not appear on the external hard drive. The last one I can find is June 30.  I did a utility scan of the hard drive disk and it is fine.

    Time Machine appears to be doing back-ups, but they do not appear on the external hard drive. The last one I can find is June 30.  I did a utility scan of the hard drive disk and it is fine. What do I do?

    Click the Time Machine icon in the menu bar. The time of the last backup is shown in the drop down.

  • My iTunes is running from my external hard drive because I need to make space on my C drive. Could/should I delete the music on the C drive?

    My iTunes is running from my external hard drive because I need to make space on my C drive. Could/should I remove the music from the C drive?

    Hello Willlig
    If iTunes media is taking up a good majority of space on your computer, you can move it by following the steps in the article below.
    iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Media folder
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1364
    Regards,
    -Norm G.

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