Moved Library to External HD but no Library Displays in iTunes

I followed the procedure to move my library to the external hard drive.
That is, I went to edit, then preferences, then went to the advanced tab and selected f:/ as the new iTunes music folder. Then I went to file, then library and selected consolidate library.
All of the files transferred to the external HD which shows folders for each artist. Within the artist folders are album folders and then within the album folders are the songs. (The songs are there and will play when clicked).
After the transfer, I realized that I did not want a bunch of folders on the f:/ directory, so I set up a new iTunes folder and an iTunes music folder on the f: drive and moved all of the artist folders into these. I went back selected edit, preferences, and then went to the advanced tab and changed the library locatin to f:/iTunes/iTunes Music
When I launch iTunes, no library appears.
I looked at other emails and faq's and copied the ITS file to the external HD using the shift start function but no library appeared.
I downloaded 1 new song. The new song appears in the library It appears in the library and the Get Info tab shows it is located at the f:/iTunes/iTunes Music.
I am hoping this is really a quick fix and would appreciate any help.

Did you let iTunes move your music or did you do it yourself?
Did you move the iTunes folder or did you move the iTunes music folder inside the iTunes folder?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748
You will probably have to recreate the playlists.

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Whar do you mean by "show up on my display "?
Go to Finder>General, is External disks checked?

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As I think many have experienced, my hard drive is filling up. I would like to but most of my music on an external drive. This I know how to do. But I would like to keep the library itself on my local drive. This is so that when I am not home with my external drive connected I can still use iTunes to download and update podcasts and download new purchased music from iTunes Store.
I know that I can store some media files on another disk than the library, I do this with a few large video files. But I would like the music folders to stay organized, just on another drive.
Is there anyone with a solution like this? Apologies if I missed this in another thread...

I just found the following tutorial on moving iTunes music:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive/48
and it seems to answer my question. I can just change the preference for the location of the music folder, and new stuff will automatically download to my portable internal drive when the external isn't connected. Seems a lot of people have questions about external drives but it is hard to search for them because of so many different ways of posing the questions.
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I'm guessing this question has been asked many times but I've searched all over the internet and these forums and am exhausted. So I beg for your help.
My computer hard drive crashed. Not sure if I can get the files off it yet or not but will find out this weekend trying to connect it as an external drive with a special cable. All the Itunes music is on an existing external hard drive that works fine. No backups were ever created of the playlists or of the library file on the crashed drive, the external drive, or anywhere else.
I'm using what I guess they call on original Ipod, 25 GB.
The main thing I care about is getting 5 years' worth of playlists back. Most of them do exist on my Ipod, so at worst I could reference them visually there and recreate them in Itunes. But, um, I'd rather not!:)
So if with that information you can tell me what series of steps I should take to try to restore my playlists into Itunes on my new PC, or point me to a link, please do. I'll put my thoughts and questions below if this helps in figuring it out. I would say the chances are that I can't access any files from my old hard drive, but it is possible.
My Ipod also contains most of my songs and playlists, but not all, such as different versions of the same song etc. That is in addition to the external hard drive that all my songs are safely on.
1) If I can access the files on the old hard drive, is there anything there that contains information on the playlists if I haven't backed them up individally? From my reading it seems like playlists are not contained in the library file itself, is that right or wrong?
2) What information is contained in that library file, what does it do? If I can't get it from my old hard drive what will happen if I have Itunes create a new one?
3) I've read that I may be able to get playlist information from my Ipod, but it seemed really confusing and I was uncertain if that was correct. Is that a possiblity? Can I do it by accesing the Ipod as an external drive?
4) Would I also be able to get the libary file from the Ipod if I can't get it from my old hard drive? If the Ipod contains most but not all of my songs, would it be bad to use this file with the complete list of songs on my external drive?
That's about all the questions I can think of, so if anyone can help I'd appreciate it. I just can't seem to find an answer specifically to what happens if your music is backed up but playlists and library are not.
Message was edited by: overthetide

+"1) If I can access the files on the old hard drive, is there anything there that contains information on the playlists if I haven't backed them up individally? From my reading it seems like playlists are not contained in the library file itself, is that right or wrong?"+
See: What are the iTunes Library files? Both the ITL and XML files keep your Library data. The ITL file is used by iTunes. The XML file is created by iTunes and can bu used in other programs or Imported back into iTunes to re-create your Library. hey are only as good as your last archived backup file (should you corrupt the current Library database file).
+"2) What information is contained in that library file, what does it do? If I can't get it from my old hard drive what will happen if I have Itunes create a new one?"+
These are only in the iTunes Library files (ITL & XML):
Playlists
Ratings
Play Count
Last Played
Date Added
Date Modified
Equalizer
Volume Adjustment
These are stored in the music file itself:
Artist
Album
Song Title
Year
Comments
Compilation tag
Lyrics
Genre
Grouping
Volume Adjustment (a special iTunes-only tag in the file - non-standard)
Composer
Bit Rate (not a tag - inherent to the file itself)
BPM
Kind (not a tag - inherent to the file itself)
Album Art (only stored in the file - not copied to the iTunes Library ITL or XML files)
+"3) I've read that I may be able to get playlist information from my Ipod, but it seemed really confusing and I was uncertain if that was correct. Is that a possiblity? Can I do it by accesing the Ipod as an external drive?"+
These links will give you several methods of recovering whatever songs remain on your iPod; some free, some third-party software, some more comprehensive for restoring Playlists, Ratings, Play Counts, etc. Read them and their associated links before deciding on a strategy that works for you. There are many various third-party software programs that will offer a more robust process, or an easier GUI. Do a Google search for them if the links below leave you wanting…
Don King Resurrected: Deleted files from hard drive (free user steps – music recovery only)
MacMuse: Computer Crashed (free user steps – music recovery only)
Copying music from iPod to computer (a primer on various methods and software)
Copying Songs from Your iPod to a Mac or PC (resource for 3rd party software)
iPodRip Software (Free trial: Mac & Windows)
PodUtil Software (Mac & Windows)
YamiPod Software (Free: Mac & Windows)
PodPlus Software (Windows)
TuneJack Software (Windows)
XPlay (Windows software For Music Recovery &/or Cross-Platform Functionality)
XPlay Photo Browser (For recovering Photos)
+"4) Would I also be able to get the libary file from the Ipod if I can't get it from my old hard drive? If the Ipod contains most but not all of my songs, would it be bad to use this file with the complete list of songs on my external drive?"+
Not directly. You'll need to use the recovery software mentioned in #3 above.
Best of Luck

Transferring Itunes Library to External HD - BUT not so straighforward

Oh dear, here I am again asking q's about this thing again. Wish it was more straightforward and I really appreciate any help. Yes, I've been searching for a solution but all the advice i find online doesnt seem to specifically fit my situation - and I'm worried if I do the wrong thing, itunes won't be able to find the new locations - (i'll have to locate each individual file for Itunes) - and/or I'm going to end up with lots of duplicates.
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All my Music, is already NOT on this Internal Hard-drive, however the External Hard that all these files are on has, just today, given real cause for concern that there is a problem with the drive.
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USERS/cjb/Music/Itunes/itunesMusic/Podcasts/ArtsandIdeas
to:
/Volumes>WDPassport/AUDIO/MyMusic/INDPAKPOP/ARRAHMAN/Taal
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One other thing you could try (might work) is one of [Dougscripts|http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/scriptcount.php?sortBy=Name& op=y] called "Move files to Folder" Again, I haven't tried this between drives (use it frequently inside my main drive) but it may preclude you having to delete the item from iTunes. It's possible you may just end up with a copy on the external and internal (and you can just delete the internal), or it might even be smart enough to handle that and it will do it all for you. I'd try it on maybe one file first, then use command+r on the file in iTunes to reveal where the referenced file is located. After that check if there is still one on your podcasts folder on the original drive.

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Transferring itunes library to external hd when music library is two places

first off i have read
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748
so no one needs to post that. ok heres my issue. i have a folder on my computer that has all my music. i added that onto itunes and now its all on itunes. someof my files were .wmv so itunes converted those and put them in the itunes music folder(this meens i now have to copies of that song. one .wmv in my desktop folder and the other in the itunes music folder). so once again my itunes folder only has the songs that were in .wmv and then made to itunes format. so my question is i want to transfer all my music to an external hard drive. i cant copy all my music to the itunes folder because i dont have that much space on my computer. is there a way to do this without loosing all my tags and rateings and such? i thought of perhaps switching the itunes folder to the external and then copying all the songs to the itunes folder. would that work? would it just copy them all to the external? please help. sorry if this is a bit confusing.

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You can add more colums by ticking checkboxes in 'View options' (command-J) and sort on any column you like.
Or did you activate the Browser (toggle it with command-B)?
Can you upload a screenshot somewhere to take a look?
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Hello and Welcome to Apple Discussions.
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