Itunes to external hard drive?? PLEASE Help.

Hi Guys.
I like my iTunes library to be clean and neat. I have about 2,800 MP3's and it took me over a week to "edit" all of them and "clean them up" (properly spelled Artist, Genre, Album title, etc).
Now that everything is clean and neat, is there anyway I can copy my iTunes on to my external hard drive?
Should my computer crash, or I get a new one (this thing is OLD), I don't want to have to re-organize my entire iTunes library.
Any help/info is much appreciated.
Thanks,
Vic

StubChain - Thats interesting. Will try that. Thank you.
StarDeb - Thanks again. Sorry to sound illiterate here, but how do i "drag" the iTunes folder to the EHD?
I know how to drag things, but I'd have to minimize the C Drive window, and then open the G drive (EHD) and not sure how to DRAG when i has to relase the mouse to open and close folders.
Assume Copy and paste would work??
what about what your article said yesterday about clicking on "keep itunes organized". still need to do that?
Guys, thanks for the help, and dealing with me. I'm iTunes illiterate.
I still don't know how to get a downloaded song from "My Documents" (where they DL to) over to iTunes. lol
one struggle at a time.
*I've also tried to reward with the "helpful" tabs to you both, and an error happened. Will try again...promise...I'll just hit SOLVED.*

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How do I copy iTunes from external
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if your main library is on your external, then when not connected, you wont have access to it.
so first decide, where do you want to keep the files.
E.g. In my case, I keep my files on "C:\iTunes Music".
I have a backup on external "Z:\iTunes Backup". If I format my laptop, this is how I restore everything.
Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced.
The iTunes music folder in selects as "C:\iTunes Music"
I have checked Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized, and also Copy Files to iTunes Music folder when adding to ibrary". Click OK to save and close preferences.
My iTunes list is now empty. I go to file, and select "Add Folder to Library". From that window, I select "Z:\iTunes Backup". iTunes then copies everything from the backup to "C:\iTunes Music". For me, backup is backup, I dont need it to play music.
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You can store the media on another drive.
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Move or Copy the ENTIRE iTunes folder from the old computer to the new computer and put it where you want it.
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Hold <SHIFT> while launching iTunes. It will prompt to create a new library or locate an existing library.
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I have over 9,000 music files in my itunes library. I hooked up an external hard drive to free up memory on my computer. I set up itunes to change the path of downloads to the new external hard drive. It worked fine until my husband forgot to turn on the external drive (many times)and when he was downloading purchased music it was going back onto the computer drive since the external wasn't turned on. SO....when you go to itunes there are exclaimation marks next to some songs (because their on the external drive. I read some of the discussions on this site and so I ran a script to clean up the "ghosts" links. After that was completed I was left with all my songs in my library DUPLICATED! that is over 18,000 files!!!! After I sorted to "show duplicate songs" I painfully sat for HOURS deleting one by one the duplicate songs!!!! I'm no where close to being finished sooooooooooooo my question is:
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how do I absolutely know if all the music files are saved on my external hard drive? Or do we even need the external if I just download from the ipod itself?
You will be saving all non purchased music to the external during this process. Afterwards all purchased AND music imported by iTUnes will be on the C drive (Internal drive). Your iPOd is not ment to be a back nor will it nativly put songs onto the PC. So in short if your short on space on the PC you need the external or a bigger Internal drive.
how do we make a copy of the playlists I currently have or are those gone forever when we do this?
This is something that has to be made very clear. You can make a text list of all songs in a REGULAR playlist so after this you can manually rebuild it. iTUnes has what they call "Smart PLaylist". By Default when you first install itunes you have smartplaylist named "Recently PLay" "Recently Added" "Top 25" just to name afew. These you don't have to worry about. Smart playlist you have created you have to write down or remeber there "Rules". If you have no idea how to make a smart playlist its mostly safe to say you havn't made any.
As for setting up the itunes purchased music to download to my C drive is that done through the default preferences?
Short answer, yes
Can you burn CD's even if the external isn't on?
If the playlist contains songs stored on the external, then no it will have to be on for it to burn to CD. You might be better off just leaving the external on all the time and only turning it off when the PC is off......then again if you did that and turned the PC on, you might forget to turn the external on too

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Hi,
I hope somebody can help me.
I've had my itunes library on a western digital external hard drive for nearly a year now. i have upwards of 17, 000 songs. Recently after a few seconds playback of certain songs the hard drives starts to click, the songs stalls, jumps ahead then stalls.
I can't play these tracks in another player such as RealPlayer, or even playing the file through Get Info direct from the hard drive.
It's happening more frequently and I'm worried I'm going to end up losing a lot of songs. I also tried dragging the mp3 onto the desktop but it comes up with:
+The Finder cannot complete the operation because some data in " " could not be read or written. (Error Code -36.)+
Is there anyway to salvage the files? Stop it happening to other ones?
I'd really appreciate a response if anybody has had a similar experience or knows what to do.
Thanks,
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Hi,
In case you haven't solved your problem yet, here are some tips.
First, the file that iTunes was indicating was "Damaged" was probably the main file it uses, iTunes Library in your "Music" folder. If this file is corrupted for any reason, iTunes will rename it with the word "Damaged" in the filename, and create a new, empty iTunes Library file. Since all the metadata, containing the definitions of the playlists, etc are stored in this file, you lose all your playlists when the "Damage" occurs. The underlying music files are untouched, as you indeed see.
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You may have already done these resets in the "tried all I can think of " portion of your post.....if not then here they are.....
PRAM
support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
SMC
support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
.....hopefully that is all that is required.....

Itunes to external hard drive?? PLEASE Help.

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