Moving ITunes Library - Missing data

Hi, I run my iTunes with iTunes music and associated directories on Drive F. I keep an EXACT copy, not a backup but COPY, of my iTunes Music on drive G.
For various reasons I want to now point my iTunes to use the library on Drive G. I EDIT the preferences to change the location from F: to G: - no issue.
I reload iTunes, click on a track to play it to check the change has worked but the track won't play as it displays as a missing track even though the track is located as part of the iTunes Library I've copied to drive G:
So simple question, what am I doing wrong. I do not want to go thru my whole library, track by track, editing the track information so the iTunes library now looks on drive G for the information as it should do/I expected it to
. I may be naive but I thought the simply changing the library location to drive G: would take care of everything !!!
Txs in advance for any/all help
rkmssj
Message was edited by: rkmssj

So simple question, what am I doing wrong.
Changing the iTunes music folder location will simply tell iTunes to use that location for anything in the future.
iTunes will not look in that location for anything already in iTunes.
You need to File -> Library -> Consolidate and iTunes will copy everything to that location and now use that location for everything.
I do not want to go thru my whole library, track by track, editing the track information so the iTunes library now looks on drive G for the information as it should do/I expected it to
You can do this...
Quit iTunes.
Copy the iTunes library.xml file to the desktop.
Open it with a text editor and cahnge the path from the old location to the new location.
You can do a simpe Find/Replace.
Once finished, close the file.
Launch iTunes then File -> Library -> Import playlist.
This should update the paths of the songs.
It will duplicate your playlists but you can simply delete the duplicate.

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    Message was edited by: Jamowa GA

    +1 Since I neglected to Keep files organized when I moved, should I attempt a File>Library>Organize files to get original itl links back?+
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    Thanks in advance.

    There are two main parts to the iTunes library - the database files & the actual media. Usually the database files are placed in *<User Folder>\Music\iTunes* with the media placed in *<User Folder>\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music*.
    If you have the standard layout then, in principle, your library should be "portable" and you can move the top level iTunes folder to another path or connect the drive to another computer with ease. To open a library in a different location click on the iTunes icon and immediately hold down Option(Mac) or Shift(PC) until a prompt appears, navigate to the new folder location and open the *iTunes Library.itl* file therein - iTunes should resolve all the file pointers and be able to access all your media. Simply connect the drive to the other machine, install iTunes and connect to the library using this method.
    If you've kept the database on the internal hard drive, but moved the content folder (iTunes Music or iTunes Media with iTunes 9.x) to the external drive then things are little more complicated however it may still be possible to make your library portable. Copy the database files (iTunes Library Extras.itl, iTunes Library Genius.itl, iTunes Library.itl, iTunes Library.xml & sentinel) plus any other subfolders (Album Artwork, iPod Games, Mobile Applications) to the parent folder of the media folder on the external drive. I.e. if your media folder on the external is called *...\Music\iTunes Music* then copy the files into the ...Music folder. Now use Option/Shift to open the library database on the external drive and test that you can still access your media. If that works, install iTunes on the other machine, connect the drive & use Option/Shift to open the libray on that machine. If any step fails simply go back and open the previous library - you're not doing anything destructive here, or asking iTunes to take charge of moving 1.6Tb of data about which could potentially go wrong.
    If you've split the content between different locations, e.g. put all your movies in a separate folder outside of iTunes Music, then you should be able to use the general method as above, delete (from iTunes only - NOT the files) any content that is not inside the iTunes Music/iTunes Media folder, then reimport from it's new location on the relocated drive.
    tt2

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