ITunes to external drive issue...

iTunes won't recognize iTunes folder on my external drive. I hooked up a Firewire external drive to my Powerbook and moved my iTunes folder to it to free up disk space on my Powerbook. I then went to Advanced preference in iTunes and repointed iTunes to the external drive. All was well - when I got info on my iTunes music, the file info said that the file was coming from the external drive. With that done, I erased the iTunes folder on my Powerbook. However, when I reopened iTunes the Library was empty and playlists gone even though iTunes was still pointing to the external drive. So, the question is why won't iTunes recognize the iTunes folder on the external drive.
Powerbook Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Did you perform all the steps in this document?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748
Trashing your complete iTunes folder will also trash the 'iTunes Library' file, which holds all the data about your music files, ratings playlists etc.
That file must not be moved.
If you did not empty the trash yet, put it back in it's original location.
M

Similar Messages

If i move itune to external drive does time machine still have backup?

if i move itune to external drive does time machine still have backup?
I just moved my itunes off my macbook pro because it was taking up too much space and put it on an external hard drive. i have a second external hard drive that i use for time machine. when i update time machine next will my itunes files be removed from the backup since they are no longer on my internal hard drive (what time machine backs up?) basically, i want to make sure i have a second copy of my itunes besides the one on my first external hard drive and i was wondering if time machine will still have all of that data (on the second external hard drive).
i cant find this answer anywhere!!! thanks so much!!!

Check to see whether or not it's excluded in the Time Machine pane of System Preferences.
Items deleted from the hard drive won't be deleted from the backup until the backup location runs out of space.
(63157)

ITunes library on external drive issue....

I have my entire iTunes library on an external hard drive. I recently moved and had to restore my computer because of some issues. The computer is working now but iTunes does not recognize my library on the external drive. It shows everything I have purchased in the cloud but anything that I have manually put in my library doe snot show up in my library. When I look in the external drive all my media is there, I just can't get to it through iTunes. The path that can be changed in the advanced settings is not right and I am not sure how to correct the path. Thanks
I have a late 2008 iMac - 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo - I just upgraded RAM to 6GB - right after I upgraded the RAM iMac booted into disk utilities - had to end up reinstalling OS and basically restore my files from Time Machine. Since I had to redownload iTunes the path under Advanced settings is not correct - it is not linked to my external. How do I fix this - I have had my library set up like this for years I just can't remember how to do it.
Thanks

dekker1 in your screenshot the folder that is usually 'one level above' that has the 'iTunes Library.itl' and the 'iTunes Music Library.xml'. Do you have copies of those files?
Those two are the files that maintain iTunes Data (playlists, ratings, song info …). Purchased files come from iCloud so that is why they always show up for download. According to Apple the library files should be placed in your home folder…
iTunes: What are the iTunes library files?
Can you restore those files back to /Users/[username]/Music/iTunes/ ?
If you don't have these files the only choice I can see is to import all the files & manually recreate all the playlists (this loses metadata, play count etc).
Normally you also have the following at the same location in your /Users/[username]/Music/iTunes/ folder.
Album Artwork/
iTunes Library Extras.itdb
iTunes Library Genius.itdb
Previous iTunes Libraries/
If you also have copies of these, restore them too.
The media folder can live anywhere, but you set the preference in iTunes to that location. It looks like your library may be in a mess already, the duplicate "Automatically add to iTunes" folders are a sign that you have chosen the wrong folder for iTunes media at some point.
Apple have a guide for moving the media, you need to ensure the media library is in the same path as on the old system, otherwise links to files will break.
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder
Once the media is working you can 'consolidate it' but it must be in a good state before this.
I hope that makes sense, does this clarify anything? I use those Apple pages as a guide for moving & handling iTunes media.

Windows 7, iTunes 10 and Seagate FreeAgant External Drive issues

I'm having some serious problems with making the three mentioned above to go along with one another. The thing with my iTunes library is that it had started to take up some much of my PC's internal hard drive space that I decided to move it all to my Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 3TB external drive. The problem itself is that while syncing my iPhone with the contents on that drive, iTunes is, more often than not, non-responsive. It simply freezes up for longer periods of time. And when it unfreezes, it moves forward with the the syncing process for just a bit. Moreover, it's not only iTunes that freezes like this. The same thing happens with the external drive and even, which seems oddest to me, Safari. It all makes the syncing process extremely slow in regards of transferring files to or from my 32GB 3GS iPhone. For example, I have started syncing my iPhone some time after 10A.M. Right now it's nearly 4 P.M., and iTunes has optimized (and only optimized) 1,205 out of 8,303 photos. This is just a nightmare... :/ Worth mentioning here is that I keep all my photos and the iPod Photo Cache folder on the external drive as well.
I had heard that Windows 7 has some communication issues with various peripheral devices, and I am not sure whether this is the case or not. I'm also not sure whether this is a Windows 7-related problem only, or does iTunes contribute to it as well.
If anyone was able to help me resolve this problem, I would be really grateful

I must say it's a bit of a relief to know someone is in the very same situation and that one another can relate. Writing my previous post, I forgot about polydorus' question regarding any constant backup process running in the background, and so I can answer this question here: No, there are no backup processes running in the background. This question, however, made me wonder what else could be slowing the external drive/iTunes down. There is a Dashboard software related to this specific external drive which starts along with every system startup. I quit this software before starting the syncing process again (I got an electricity cut off during the previous syncing, so I simply had to start it all over again :/), and now iTunes doesn't show in the Task Manager as "Not Responding". At least it doesn't happen until another application turns non-responsive, when it does, iTunes and Safari turn non-responsive as well.
But even though iTunes shows as "Running" most of the time now, the syncing process is still as slow as h-e-l-l :/ I began this last syncing yesterday at 8:09P.M., and right now it's nearly 12:00P.M. :/ iTunes looks as if it was running, since the rotating arrows icon next to my iPhone name on the left pane don't stop, but iTunes stops from time to time, without going any further with optimizing photos - it looks as if it was waiting until it could access the external drive.
I don't know what else could be slowing everything down like this :/ Could it be iPhone itself, which slows down the communication between the PC and the external drive, because it's also connected to the USB port, taking up some of its bandwidth?
igbg: My driver is running on 6.1.7601.17514 drivers' version. Even if there is a newer version of these drivers (which, basing on your post, I guess wouldn't solve the problem :/), I can't update it now, while syncing
P.S. As for my music, I keep it on my D drive, and have no problems with playing it. It's only the whole rest (books, movies and photos) which is stored on the external drive

Itunes on external drive will not open - error message 13014

I have never posted a question here before - just kind of been stumbling my way around the forums looking for answers, which has usually worked for me - until today. About a year ago, I moved my itunes (music and movies) to an external drive to free up space on my imac - following instructions in one of these forums. It has been working with very few issues until today. Suddenly, I am unable to open itunes. I get the error message 13014. I have tried restarting (several times) and updating itunes with no luck. I am at a complete loss. I am afraid if someone asks how exactly I moved my itunes library, I won't be able to answer that. Until today, I've been opening up my itunes by holding down the option key while opening itunes, and it has worked just fine, but now I am faced with this error message and no itunes. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Try this discussion...
https://discussions.apple.com/message/12059605#12059605
From the More Like This section on the right

Backed up iTunes on external drive and lost my playlists

Hey Everyone,
So here is my issue. I use my macbook for DJing purposes and decided to backup my iTunes library to an external hard drive incase of a crash so I dont loose my precious music. So I went into my preferences, Advanced, and changed the iTunes folder location to my external, and consolidated the library which backed up my files to the drive but did not delete them from the internal drive, However whenever I would click a song to play it said it could not find the file. So I went back into preferences and changed the folder location back to iTunes music but that still didnt work. To make a long story short, I ended up Re importing the playlist (From internal Drive) back into itunes which worked fine. Here is my main issue.... All of my playlist folders are there but they are all empty. I have about 100 of them and are very very organized. I am wondering since I backed up the library to the external drive, Are the playlist folders on my external hard drive and how can I retrieve them if they are? Any help on this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in Advance!

decided to backup my iTunes library to an external hard drive incase of a crash so I dont loose my precious music. So I went into my preferences, Advanced, and changed the iTunes folder location to my external, and consolidated the library which backed up my files to the drive
This is not a backup. This copies everything in iTunes to the new location and iTunes will use that location from now on.
The music located in /Music/iTunesiTunes music/ folder is no longer needed or used by iTunes.
However whenever I would click a song to play it said it could not find the file
iTunes was looking for it on the external (which you probably unplugged/umnounted).
I am wondering since I backed up the library to the external drive
You did not back up the library to the external.
You consolidated everything in iTunes to the external and iTunes will use that.
As Jim noted, if you want to to backup, copy the entire iTunes folder.
Jim'
If you somehow lost it, look for it in the "Previous iTunes Libraries" folder in your music folder.
The itl file gets copied into the *Previous iTunes Libraries* folder only when you update iTunes.

Another external drive issue with Frontrow

I've already looked at these treads,
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1511877&tstart=2
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8593111&#8593111
But they aren't really everything. I have an external drive that I have my Movies, TV Shows, and Music on. I changed the location in iTunes, and everything imported fine. My AppleTV sees all of them just fine. However Frontrow won't. I can put an alias in the Movies folder as described, but then I don't see anything in the TV Shows menu option in FR. Sure they are listed under the movies, if I put a shortcut in there for them. I want Frontrow to work just as it did when all my media was on the local drive, how do I do that?

Hello Brett!,
A rule i usually live by when purchasing externals, is to firstly check the file format (many are factory formatted in NTFS or FAT32) and if that is the case then change them to HFS+ using disk utility. That is of course if you intend to only use it with your mac, for example i use an external formatted in FAT32 and it works on Windows and Mac.
Secondly its a good code of practice to make sure the drive spins up, as that is the easiest way to check for a dodgy powersupply.
Thirdly and hopefully finally, if those tips don't work then try mounting it on another mac or pc and see if it is detected in any form, that'll tell you if there is a connection issue.
Regards,

Dual External Drive Issue

I have two WD Passport drives. One serves as my Time Machine back up drive and the other for my iPhote and iTunes library. My issue is that when I plug both of them into the USB ports, my Macbook Pro only recognizes one of them. Why? I can only think that the Macbook cannot power both from the USBs. This also means that Time Machine is not backing up my other external drive as they both cannot operate at the same time. So, would then need to move my iPhoto and iTunes back to the hard drive which is more than half full already. Any help????

Do both HDDs operate correctly when attached individually and do so on all USB ports? If so, the MBP should be able to power both.
Try SMC and Pram resets:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
If they do not solve the issue, a work around is a powered hub but an appointment at an Apple genius bar should be made so that the problem is identified and corrected.
Ciao.

Cannot open itunes without external drive connected

Mac os x 10.7.3
I am having serious issues with iTunes.
I dont know what changed but now i can no longer open itunes. It crashes before it even launches it seems like.
this doesnt happen when i have my external drive (where my music is stored). I have changed my itunes media folder to one on the external. Everything worked fine for weeks before this point.
I cannot open it in safe mode
i have tried downloading itunes and installing but that doesnt seem to work. Do i need to full remove itunes?
I also cannot open quicktime player. it says it is damaged or incomplete and theres no actual quicktime icon for the application just one of the incomplete type (similar to the prohibted sign) symbol of icons. I have tried to reinstall quicktime via the optionals install on my snow leopard disk. but no change
here is the error log i get:
Process:         iTunes [1552]
Path:            /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes
Identifier:      com.apple.iTunes
Version:         10.6 (10.6)
Build Info:      iTunes-10604001~1
Code Type:       X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [144]
Date/Time:       2012-03-24 20:03:25.940 -0700
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.7.3 (11D50)
Report Version: 9
Interval Since Last Report:          52227 sec
Crashes Since Last Report:           33
Per-App Interval Since Last Report: 104514 sec
Per-App Crashes Since Last Report:   33
Anonymous UUID:                      698A0C30-4EF4-4DDD-BBCF-DB27A83CF81B
Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000110e8e194
VM Regions Near 0x110e8e194:
    MALLOC_LARGE           0000000110d6e000-0000000110d72000 [   16K] rw-/rwx SM=PRV
-->
    MALLOC_LARGE           0000000110eea000-0000000110f73000 [ 548K] rw-/rwx SM=PRV
Th

See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
tt2

Having problems connecting my iTunes to external drive

I am migrating from a PC to iMac. My itunes on my PC connects to an external drive which was entered into the "itunes media folder location" under Advannced.
I am trying to connect to this drive on my Mac and I am getting the message " There was a proble connecting to the server "Music" The version of the server you ar trying to connect to is not supported. Please contact your system administrator to resolve the problem"
I have installed itunes via Parallel and connected no problem to the 'music' drive. Sort of seem to defeat the point of having two versions of itunes running. Is there something i need to do got it working on the Mac op system?
thanks

I don't know why you are installing iTunes through Parallels since Mac has its own version of iTunes.
The get iTunes for Mac to use iTunes on the external, hold down the option key while starting iTunes and guide it to the library file in the iTunes folder on the external drive. If it says it cannot find a library file then that means you don't have a complete set of files on the external to get it to be used in this way and will need to reconfigure your library.
Another issue you may encounter is drive format incompatibility. If you formatted this drive with a Windows computer it will likely be NTFS formatted. You will either need to wipe the drive and reformat to FAT32 for use with both Macs and PCs, or the Mac format. Depending upon which way you want to go you will need third party software.
I've omitted a lot of details, but we can provide those once we know exactly how you want to operate.

After installing iTunes 10, external drive error

The library which the previous iTunes 9 was connected to is on my external WD 2TB drive. After installing iTunes 10, I played around with the interface for a few minutes, and then I shut my computer off.
This morning, I turned on my computer and my external drive loaded up. But when it opened iTunes and started reading, the external started to be read, and it ejected automatically... and error window popped up warning me that it wasn't ejected properly.
From then on, this kept on occurring. The drive loads up but after a few minutes it gets ejected again. I don't know what happened.
I checked with Disk Utilities, and there was zero problems.
Could someone help me with this problem? I have changed to different firewire cables from very short, to long etc but still the same issues. I don't want to keep doing this as it might corrupt all my data...many years of of collected photos, music, movies etc...as well as a major part of my work files.
This is so sad, and I just wished I bought a second drive to clone the one I have. Lesson learnt.

Let's try a standalone Apple Application Support install. It still might not install, but fingers crossed any error messages will give us a better idea of the underlying cause of the issue.
Download and save a copy of the iTunesSetup.exe installer file to your hard drive:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
Download and install the free trial version of WinRAR:
http://www.rarlab.com/
Right-click the iTunesSetup.exe, and select "Extract to iTunesSetup". WinRAR will expand the contents of the file into a folder called "iTunesSetup".
Go into the folder and doubleclick the AppleApplicationSupport.msi to do a standalone AAS install.
Does it install properly for you? If so, does iTunes launch properly now?
If instead you get an error message during the install, let us know what it says. (Precise text, please.)

Problem with iTunes and external drive

I moved my files to an external hard drive months ago but apparently forgot to uncheck the auto synch button. It seems that I just managed to copy them all back to my computer hard drive where I now only have 6gb. Since I originally moved the files I have put some movies and a little music on the computer and have iPad files in the mix. How to I get it all synched so that I know I have everything and then delete it from my hard drive?
I then would like to add some new CDs to the IPod, but do not want them stored on my computer drive, just external drive.
Please feel free to treat me like I am clueless because I am. Once I burned my entire Cd collection and moved it I have not done anything else with iTunes except buy the occasional app.
Thanks in advance for the help.
I was trying to follow directions on another post which did not seem to fit so I began trying random things. Very bad idea!
Cyndi

Nevermind. I figured it out.

How do I use Itunes from external drive as main sync for Iphone 4

I apologize if this is obvious but I have searched for quite awhile without finding result.
I currently have my iTunes synced to my Macbook Pro. I purchased a Macbook Air for ease in travel. I would like to move sync of my material on iTunes to my Air as I carry it more with me.
I was told at an Apple Store to purchase a Time Machine and an external hard drive. Both I purchased. I then read for a few hours how to move my itunes to the external drive. The only way I could finally get it to work was to physically connect a USB between the MacBook Pro and the External Drive. Once my Pro recognized the External Drive I dragged my Itunes and watched it copy all the data.
Unfortunately, when I am on the Air I cannot locate within Finder the External Drive. I do see my time Machine but cannot figure out how to get my itunes data from the external drive through the time machine.
You still with me?
So, can someone help me understand how to go the next step. As I understand from reading this forum I would then go into my Advanced Properties in Itunes (on the Air) and choose to relocate where the iTunes sync occurs. Then I can use my Air for syncing as it wont be dependent on the limited space and once I've changed the properties location for where to find my iTunes data I wont be dependent on the Pro.
PS: Yes I've downloaded all of the newest product software updates (iTunes, iPhone OS, Macs) as of the date this is posed 3/20/2011

try this:
hold the option key and launch iTunes. at the prompt, click on +choose library+ and select the iTunes folder you copied to the external.
obviously, the external holding your library must be mounted on your desktop for iTunes to find it.
if the drive is connected but doesn't show up on the Air's desktop, go finder > preferences > general and check if +external disks+ is check marked under +show these items on the desktop+.

Using iTunes on external drive with new computer

My mac died a few weeks ago but I had my iTunes library on an external drive.
Trying to point my new mac at this same external drive so that I can get iTunes running again but can't seem to make it work.
Is there any way around this without reimporting everything?

ldav wrote:
I had my iTunes library on an external drive.
what exactly do you have on the external ? the entire iTunes folder or just the iTunes music (or media) folder ?
Trying to point my new mac at this same external drive so that I can get iTunes running again but can't seem to make it work.
that tells iTunes where to put newly added content, not where the current content is.
JGG

Moving iTunes from external drive to new computer

I have my itunes stored on an external drive lettered "E". How can I move them to my new computer. The external drive letter "E" is not available on the new computer but the hard drive is plenty large enough to hold my whole collection and I would like to install them on it. I have already copied my itunes music folder and libraries to the new computer.
Thanks for any input.

This did not work. I signed into the iTunes store as the same user and I can still not play the music I purchased or the music I am authorized to play that others purchased. Can anyone help out with this question?

ITunes to external drive issue...

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