Itunes will not associate with my music folders on an external hard drive

Question

I moved all of my music on both libraries for two separate Ipods onto an external hard drive. Now when I open Itunes neither one of the libraries comes up. I have tried holding down the shift and choosing a library but it does not open. I am beyond frustrated, please help.

Answer 1

Hi, welcome to Apple Discussions.
To create or open an alternate iTunes library click the icon to start iTunes and *immediately press and _hold down_ the shift key (option for Macs)* until asked to create or choose a library. Click Choose and browse to the .itl file you want to open.
The normal layout for an iTunes library is a folder called iTunes which has some library database files in it and a folder for media called *iTunes Media* or *iTunes Music* (if created pre iTunes-9).
If you move the main iTunes folder elsewhere so that the relative path from the library to the media is unchanged then open using the shift-start-iTunes method then usually the library will carry on working as if nothing has happended.
If you just move the iTunes Media/iTunes Music folder to a new path then immediately update the iTunes preference for the location of the iTunes Media folder then sometimes it will sort itself out, but often it won't. In this case move the media folder back where it came from, open, test & close the library, then go back and move the whole iTunes folder.
If the media folder has previously been moved from inside the iTunes folder by changing the location of the media folder and then consolidating to the new location it gets more complicated. In this case the library files can usually be moved to the parent folder of the media folder, leaving the absolute path to each file unchaged but re-esatablishing the normal arrangement of library folder enclosing media folder. Once done the whole parent folder can then be renamed or moved as desired.
tt2