Lock icons on music stored on external HD. Why?

Please read entire problem: I have downloaded music to an authorized iMac...i then back up the music to an external HD. Then i try to move the music to an another authorized laptop (same house/workshop).... i notice that some of the music has a lock icon. Some of the music i have downloaded back to back... and only some of the music has the lock icons and i can't bring it into my laptop....at present the workaround is turning on filesharing.....but what's the point of "backing up" if the music is locked? I have been doing this for about a year....never had a problem before.... is it an update problem? am running iTunes 7.5

Well.... I decided to redo what i had done. Before i moved the music from the first machine, i made sure it was "authorized"....then dragged copies of the bought music onto the external hard drive. Then before i moved the music from the external HD, i made sure i authorized the machine i was moving them onto. Not sure if this did it or not. There are still "lock" icons on the music, i've moved onto that machine, but they DO play. I have NO IDEA what happened..... but it is working again. ????....

Similar Messages

I cannot download the update for itunes - music stored on external drive - download error state invalid "H" drive ? anyone have any ideas ? Cheers

I cannot download the update for itunes - music stored on external drive as computer got full up - download error state invalid "H" drive ? anyone have any ideas ? Cheers

See "Invalid drive X:\" install errors.
tt2

Lock icon on music

What does the lock icon on my songs mean? It seems that every time I try to use on of the 'locked' songs, it completely messes up my slideshow. Can I get rid of the locks?

Don't know if the circumstances are the same but...
I found this happened to my "purchased" music when I had ITunes and iPhoto on different drives.
The first slide is timed to last for ages, then all the other slides progress very quickly to catch up.
I took the cheats way out and simply cycled my slideshow music to a CD and re imported it into iTunes from that CD.
It then no longer showed as "purchased" and worked fine with my slide shows.
I presumed it was something upseting the rights management as I was working with an external drive.
Cheers,
David.

Itunes won't play music stored on external drive after upgrade to 10.5.3

I updated to 10.5.3 with music files stored on external drive. iTunes shows all music, but will not play. I did have the library file stored locally-I'm not sure if this is why the files all show in Itunes. Music files are about 40gb so I don't have space on my MBpro to store files locally without lag.
When I click a song to play nothing happens. I've read a bunch of other discussions but the only option I've seen is to delete the library and start over. I have a bunch of playlists so I don't want to lose that data and I would rather not have to go to each playlisty and export and import again. Suggestions?
I use match and also store everything in the cloud-but that isn't showing up either

Okay, found the reason in another tread...

Music stored on external hard drive and iPod no longer displayed in iTunes

I have all of my music stored on a portable external hard drive. For some reason, when I last booted up my computer the drive name from the external hard drive changed from F:\ to G:\. Unfortunately the source for all the music was linked to the F:. Now the iTunes doesn't know where the music is. I have tried to consolidate the library, but it didn't work. And now nothing is showing up in my iTunes. But all of my music is still stored on the external hard drive and the iPod. Any suggestions?

Close itunes, go into windows disk mgmt and set the drive letter back to F:
When you re-open itunes it should be back to normal.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844

Share music stored on external hard drive with users of computer?

Is it possible to share music that has been stored on an external hard drive with the users of that computer? I have just moved and combined all music to an external hard drive and now I want to allow all the users to access that music. I'd also like to have it so that when one user adds more music, it is also added to the other users iTunes.

Close itunes, go into windows disk mgmt and set the drive letter back to F:
When you re-open itunes it should be back to normal.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844

Music stored on external hard drive

hi,
i have a lot of music stored on an external hard drive, too much to put on my laptop and therefore can not keep it in my itunes library. is there a way to keep it in some kind of library so i can view and play it in albums, artists etc like is possible with itunes?

In the "Advanced" iTunes preference, set it to not copy to iTunes Music folder when adding to library. You can then drag folders of music files from external drives to iTunes playlists. They will be added the the iTunes library, but the files will stay on the external drives, and will not take any space on the internal drive (except for a small amount of space for entries in the iTunes database).

Broken Links for music stored on external drive

I take my laptop with me when I go on the road but do not take my external HD where I have much of my music stored. If I am gone long enough - itunes will "forget" where those files are stored and will ask me to individually point to their location. It will of course recognize the external HD when I return - but the file extension data on how to connect each library entry with its corresponding data file is wiped. This gets a little old when we are dealing thousands of files. Isn't there any way to tell itunes what you would tell any other pathetic child looking for a lost toy, "just look in the last place you left it you dummy?"

Sorry but iTunes is stupid that way. I have just learned to not open iTunes unless I am connected to my home network where my library is stored.

Automatically syncing with music stored on external drive?

I most of my music on an external drive. The drive isn't always connected to the PC. Prior to iTunes 9.1 I could have iTunes automatically sync the music to my iPhone. If the external drive was disconnected iTunes would simply ignore the missing files and leave them on the phone.
With iTunes 9.1 (and 9.2) I now check the "Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 Kbps AAC" option. When I first used this I found that if I synced my phone with the external drive disconnected, it would remove all the music files from the phone that were stored on the external drive and had been converted to 128 Kbps. That was extremely annoying to say the least so I set iTunes to sync manually to prevent that from happening. I read there was a bug in the original iTunes 9.1 that caused iTunes to always try and sync 128 Kbps converted files every time which could explain why they were being deleted, but I never tried again after upgrading.
Yesterday I clicked to sync books to my iPhone, not realizing that it would wipe out all music, movies and TV from my iPhone. Again very annoying. I went to manually sync them back and noticed my Genius mixes won't sync and I read that they only sync if auto-sync is enabled.
My question is, is there an easy way to keep my music files on an external drive, automatically, sync and have them covert to 128 Kbps without having to worry about all my music being wiped off the phone if the drive is disconnected at the time iPhone syncs?

I don't believe you can do that. The convert to 128 bit only converts the songs being written to the iPod. Every time you play a song it changes (the play count goes up) so iTunes is going to go try to find those and update them every time it syncs.
I am able to disconnect my external that holds my movies and the movies remain but those are not being converted. I think that is where the problem is.
Good luck!

Music stored on external drive but doesnt appear on new computer

I store my music on an external drive and in a folder E:\ Hugo's Tunes because my laptop drive is too small. Recently laptop died and I have installed itunes on another laptop also with a small drive. I cannot see my content on the new itunes. I have set location in preferences to E:\Hugo's Tunes without any benefit. Clearly I'm doing something silly but don't know what. Help please

Hi Hugo. If the content was stored on the external drive but the library files were stored on the internal then you have lost all your original library information such as date added, ratings and play counts. Having pointed iTunes to the external drive already you still need to import the content into your new empty library. If, on the other hand, you had successfully put your library files on the external then you need to hold down shift when starting iTunes and browse to the library on the external drive.
Assuming my first guess was correct I'd actually recommend that you use the hold-down-shift-when-starting-iTunes method to create a new empty library at <External>iTunes, then move the existing media files into *<External>\iTunes\iTunes Media* and finally import *<External>\iTunes\iTunes Media* into the library. This will make moving the library between machines much easier in future.
tt2

Music stored on external hard disc not found after re-boot

I moved all my music onto an external hard disc becuase it was taking up too much space on my Mac. Now every time I reboot I get an error message saying music not found, please find. ie. I have to point itunes to all the folders on my hard drive again. How can I stop this happening?
Thanks for your help
imac g5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

I followed other comments on the forum and succeeded. Thanks! -Migs

New hard drive on laptop, itunes music stored on external hard drive...

my hard drive on my laptop crashed and I got a new one installed...I kept all my itunes music on an external hard drive, and that is ok. I have reinstalled itunes on my laptop, but how do I get itunes to read the music from my external hard drive??

When you say "when i double click on my itunes files it just opens up this list of music." it doesn't mean anything to me. You need to explain clearly, remember I only know what you tell me.
I need to understand how you have things set up and if you had you iTunes library database on the external drive or the c: drive. That is the iTunes folder containing iTunes library.itl.
What do you see when you open iTunes on the new PC, are your music files there. If not, every time you play a track it gets added to itUnes so you should at least have some files in your library.
What problem are you trying to solve? Is just getting the tracks into your iTunes library, or are you also concerned about ratings, count and playlists from the old PC. If so do you still have access to the old PC?

Itunes music stored on external hard drive -- and itunes library empty

Hi, I recently upgraded to a new external HD (Seagate Go for Mac) and I moved my 111 GB of music media (which was stored on my old ext. HD) onto the Seagate. Only problem then was that when I tried to play a song in the iTunes library, it couldn't locate the file.
So -- after trying various combos of things, I ended-up doing a new install of iTunes. Which of course shows up empty (the iTunes library). And all my music media is still on the Seagate.
So -- is there a way to have my iTunes library recognize what is in the Seagate? So I don't have to burn that 111GB of music again?
Thank you

update to the question above -- I went into Time Machine and restored my iTunes library, so it is showing what music I have again in there. FYI in advanced settings, I kept the setting that the music is stored in the Seagate HD.
BUT when I click on any music, it still cannot locate the file (all the music media files are still stored on the Seagate ext. HD)
So -- how can I get the iTunes library to re-connect with what is in the Seagate HD?
Thank you!

Itunes music stored on external hard drive

Hello,
I have my itunes music, movies and tv shows stored on a lacie external hard drive that is getting close to full. I was wondering if there was a way to sync it so that I could use a second hard drive to start storing music on? I have gone to the "advanced" preferences and told itunes where I want to keep my music library.
Also if I have set the preference to tell itunes where the music is, what do I delete from my laptop to make room available on the hard drive (internal)?
Thanks.
Jack

Okay, I thought as much. I too wanted to also separate my movies, photos and music for example videos and photos on one external hard drive and music on another. It seems like this is not possible therefore I ask, if I buy a larger external HD, what is the general feeling people have about taking all 100+ gigs on current hard drive and moving/copying to a new larger one? Playback quality loss an issue?
Thoughts??
Thanks
Jack

Music stored on external drive

I have moved my itunes library from my c drive to an external drive (f:). How can I direct my itunes icon to open my library on the external drive? (My c drive was full, thus the move.)

Hello Stained Glass,
And welcome to Apple Discussions!
Head to the Edit drop down menu and choose "Preferences." Then head over to the Advanced tab. You will an option that says *iTunes Media folder Location*. Go ahead and click the change button. From there, navigate to your folder on your F drive and make the appropriate selection.
B-rock

Lock icons on music stored on external HD. Why?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for