Link between iTunes and Library lost. Hard drive failure

Hi!
   I need help with the following problem. (i7 27" iMac/256GB SSD + 1TB of internal disk hard drive. (SATA/7200rpm/3.5"))
          The 1TB internal hard drive on my iMac failed the S.M.A.R.T. Utilities test so Apple called in the computer and I had to have the hard drive replaced. The technicians reloaded the system from a 1TB external Western Digital hard drive; I had backed up the everything on it using Time Machine.
          Unfortunately, the iTunes application cannot now locate my iTunes library. I create a lot of slideshows on Aperture and use music from iTunes on the audio tracks. The titles on the audio tracks are now inaudible and are preceded by a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark inside. Can anyone help me on how I should re-establish the original link between iTunes and its library. The music files are located in folders (name of artists), within a folder (iTunes Music), within a folder (iTunes), within a folder (Music), within a folder (declangreaney) on the 1TB of internal disk drive.
          In trying to solve the problem, I went through the folders and double clicked on one song. This opened iTunes so I highlighted and dragged all the other 'artist-named' folders on the iTunes interface and in doing so, I succeeded in accessing all the files. This is not wholly satisfactory, however, as I do not have my own playlists and more seriously, there is still no link between the Aperture audio tracks.
Sincerely,
     DG.

    Hi again!
     I saved the last message by accident which caused the reply to be sent off and so I had not finished what I wanted to write. Aploogies.
     I didn't find the new iMac hybrid SSD/Disk system easy to understand when it arrived over a year ago. I eventually decided that the 256 SSD section would be best suited to having the Operatin System for greater speed and I must have decided to put the music files on the 1TB internal hard drive along with photos and raw video clips. I can't honestly remember. There was a lot to take in. I wasn't even aware until this failure that iTunes had a default location.
     In addition to having the iTunes folder on the internal 1TB hard drive, I used Time Machine to store the entire computer contents on a 1TB Western Digital external hard drive. I had done my last Time Machine back-up on the 13 February and so I was hoping that by opening one or two songs on the back-up, they might reactivate the 'old' interface with the original playlists on it. That didn't happen but I then realised, while I was still in the Tme Machine back-ups on the WD external hard drive, that in the iTunes Media folder contained within the iTunes folder on the default Users/Username/Music location there was only an Add automatically to iTunes folder which was empty. While still still looking through the Time Machine back-upsI saw that the music instead was stored on the 1TB of internal hard drive as outlined on the first post:
     'The music files are located in folders (name of artists), within a folder (iTunes Music), within a folder (iTunes), within a folder (Music), within a folder (username) on the 1TB of internal disk drive.'
   The iTunes.itl file was last modified on Monday at 21:52. Created on 17th February, 2012. Size 386KB
     Regards,
     DG.

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While downloading select Downloads in the left-hand column and make sure Allow Simultaneous Downloads is unchecked. This seems to help with partial downloads...
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    Hi again!
     I saved the last message by accident which caused the reply to be sent off and so I had not finished what I wanted to write. Aploogies.
     I didn't find the new iMac hybrid SSD/Disk system easy to understand when it arrived over a year ago. I eventually decided that the 256 SSD section would be best suited to having the Operatin System for greater speed and I must have decided to put the music files on the 1TB internal hard drive along with photos and raw video clips. I can't honestly remember. There was a lot to take in. I wasn't even aware until this failure that iTunes had a default location.
     In addition to having the iTunes folder on the internal 1TB hard drive, I used Time Machine to store the entire computer contents on a 1TB Western Digital external hard drive. I had done my last Time Machine back-up on the 13 February and so I was hoping that by opening one or two songs on the back-up, they might reactivate the 'old' interface with the original playlists on it. That didn't happen but I then realised, while I was still in the Tme Machine back-ups on the WD external hard drive, that in the iTunes Media folder contained within the iTunes folder on the default Users/Username/Music location there was only an Add automatically to iTunes folder which was empty. While still still looking through the Time Machine back-upsI saw that the music instead was stored on the 1TB of internal hard drive as outlined on the first post:
     'The music files are located in folders (name of artists), within a folder (iTunes Music), within a folder (iTunes), within a folder (Music), within a folder (username) on the 1TB of internal disk drive.'
   The iTunes.itl file was last modified on Monday at 21:52. Created on 17th February, 2012. Size 386KB
     Regards,
     DG.

Desperate help needed: Itunes and library in external drive

I've had for a few years my whole music library (files) in an external drive. Since the last versions (7 onwards), everytime I open ITunes I keep seeing my library in ITunes, but when trying to play, the link is lost.
Sometimes this happens after loosing the location of the external hard drive in preferences (pointing back to default my documents), other times keep the right location but the file links keep broken. I always switch on the drive before opening Itunes, so this mustn't be the problem.
Mates, got like 90 GB of music, which means that is virtually a nightmare to relink everything again.
I'll happreciate any help that you can give.
I've followed all the related tutorials and emails on how to keep Itunes on an external hard drive already.
Thanks in advance

You HAVE to have the exHD operating before opening itunes. That is just the way it works.
Another common problem is Windows changing an exHD letter on you when you plug in a new device like a digital camera. That will mess up the paths in itunes....if itunes was told to look on the E: drive and suddenly Windows has changed it to F:
Make sure you assign a drive letter to your exHD that will not change.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844
And lastly, other software packages can meddle with itunes saving its ITL library database file. So make sure you make frequent backups of the ITL file, and possibly investigate what could be happening that it is not being saved correctly: security software, other media managers like Sony, Verizon, Songbird, Zune....

Itunes and an external hard drive.

I'm using itunes with an external harddrive. Recently, after traveling with my computer, and resyncing upon returning, itunes has been unable to find any of my music. I get the ! next to the songs. I have itunes pointed to the external drive but to no avail?
I have noticed that the external drive just has the mp3's which are not in any folder at all. I would expect that the music would be in a folder named "itunes music"? I don't know if this could be the problem. I'm being really careful because this is the only copy of this music, and I don't currently have a back-up drive big enough to copy them to.
Advice? Help? Can anyone point me to any previous threads?
thanks.

As long as you follow the tip that was linked, you should be OK.
A couple of things:
1. You can't start iTunes when the ext hard drive is not connected. Doing so will result in a library messed up at least a bit, possibly a lot.
2. To safeguard against that little bit, you're going to want to backup your library files occasionally.
3. Somebody (may have been StarDeb55) suggested renaming the iTunes program link to 'check external' as a reminder.
4. If you'd like to still be able to use iTunes for some music, say, like during travel, you can make another user account, and put the desired music there (make sure it's all on the actual laptop).
5. Any ext hard drive sold nowadays should do. USB2 or Firewire.
<hr>
What are the iTunes Library files?

Restoring iTunes Library after hard drive failure.

So a few days ago I had to re partition my hard drive (erase all the data) because I received an unfixable problem from Finder error 10810. The problem created overlapping files on my hard drive which was able to be solved by doing a repair disk from Disk Utility. So I made sure I had a backup of all my information on my iMac, and erased the hard drive and re-installed Snow Leopard. After the installation was complete I began restoring all the files I had from Time Machine, but when I got to my iTunes library I received the error message saying that "You cannot access the iTunes folder because you are not authorized". So if anyone can help me out with this that would be great, I tried calling Apple but i'm not willing to pay the ridiculous $50 fee to speak to a human being.

I'm trying it file by file, because I don't need everything back on my hard drive but things like my iTunes Library I want. And I did use a different username when doing the setup assistant, but I thought about that and went back and re-named my current account and then went into my backup files and set all the sharing permissions to Read and Write for all accounts.

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First I would use Finder and go verify that your songs are actually on your external hard drive. If they are, then make sure you specified iTunes directory is pointing to the correct directory on that external hard drive.
If both look ok, then go ahead and switch it on over to automatic. Otherwise, if the songs still arent showing up just re-add them all to your library.

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I recently moved all my music from both my pc and my laptop (both windows) onto my external hard drive. I followed the step by step instructions set out by apple support. Everything was working great until I opened Itunes without my ex hd being connected. The itunes media file location has now gone back too F/;itunes. And 90% of the music in my library now wont play as it cannot find its original location.
How do I get back to using my ex hd?
Itunes scares the life out of me and im petrified that if I simply change it back to the filepath to my ex hd it will all go t*ts up basically?!
How do I fix it without messing up everything? Will I get duplicates then on my library?
And what folder in my hard drive do I direct it back too?
Would I be as well deleting itunes and reinstalling?
Any help would be great!!
Please dont be too techinal in your responses as Im not great with the pc lingo! Explain like you would to a child lol!!

With the external drive connected, correct the media folder location (Edit > Prefrences > Advanced) so that it points to media folder ont the external drive, then shut down iTunes and restart it. Links to the files should be repaired. If that doesn't work try out my FindTracks script.
See also this post.
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Hey everyone hope you are all well. I was wondering if I would be able to have my itunes library on an external hard drive and then be able to access it from two different apple tv's in different houses.

Yes, that works fine.
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I have an external hard drive that I like to store my music on since I usually have a good deal of it.
Anyone know the best way to do this?
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For instructions, see:
iTunes: Moving Your iTunes Music Folder
Don't delete the tracks from the old location until you've confirmed that they're working correctly from the external drive. And IMPORTANT: do not delete the iTunes folder or the preference files it contains from your boot hard drive; delete ONLY the tracks themselves (i.e. the contents of the old iTunes Music folder).

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So I just hooked up my external hard drive (LaCie d2 160GB) and I moved all of my music onto it to free up some space on my computer. I have a lot of music (30+ GB), and my computer was sluggish because of it. Well now I have my music on this nice handy dandy hard drive, but when I open my iTunes, every song has an exclamation point next to it. I already went to iTunes preferences and changed the iTunes music folder location to the LaCie hard drive, but it still won't locate the songs unless I do it manually. I DO NOT WANT TO MANUALLY LOCATE 6500 SONGS!!!! What can I do???? I already restarted my computer, but I can't get these files recognized!!!

This is how Apple say it should be done:
iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder
If you moved it manually and then changed the preferences to tell iTunes where the music folder is you are really telling iTunes where to put new stuff.
Move all your music back to where it was and then follow the instructions above.
Regards,
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I bought many files from iTunes, and then my hard drive went, will Apple...

give them back?
i know they can see what files i've purchased, and it was a hardware defect that caused the problem, so shouldn't they have to either credit my account or give me the files back?

They have no obligation whatsoever to grant you a re-download and certainly will not credit your account.
It is your responsibility to backup your purchases.
Sometimes they do grant a re-download.
See this topic (with a happy ending):
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=2644298
Hope this helps.
M

HT1473 I recently had to replace my hard drive and lost my iTunes library. Now I cannot transfer the library from my iPod to iTunes on the new hard drive (same computer). How can I complete the transfer?

I recently had to replace my hard drive and lost my iTunes library. When I try to transfer the content from my iPod to iTunes on the new hard drive (same computer), it would only let me transfer iTunes store purchases. How can I complete the transfer of all the content on the iPod back onto the computer?

Recover media from iPod
See this post for options on moving your iPod data back to your computer.
tt2

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I recently had a catastrophic hard drive failure and had to replace it. At the time, I had a VERY extensive music library and it is now lost. This entire library was also on iTunes. Is it possible to recover that library, or do I have to download again?

If your hard drive was not backed up then you can download items purchased from the iTunes Store.
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Did you subscribe to iTunes Match service? If you did, your other music would be available too.
Note, this restores the music files themselves, not playlists, playcount, ratings, or other things associated with the actual library file structure.
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Hard Drive Failure, so I've lost ITunes Library. Ipod more up-to-date how do I transfer music from IPod to library?

Hi,
I had a hard drive failure on my old PC and I couldn't retrieve anything. I have purchased a new PC and downloaded itunes (Version I'm not use to which isn't helping) and signed in however it only has my purchased songs on the cloud which I need to download into my library from cloud. However I have thousands of songs that I imported into my old library from CD's etc which is no lost apart from all the data held on my ipod.
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See:
Syncing to a "New" Computer or replacing a "crashed" Hard Drive: Apple Support Communities
or
Recovering your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device: Apple Support Communities

Link between iTunes and Library lost. Hard drive failure

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