Moving Pictures to External Hard Drive

I purchased a SimpleDrive External Hard Drive (by SimpleTech) to transfer photos off of my Dell laptop. Since then, we purchased an iMac computer, and I thought it would be compatible with the Mac as well. I uploaded the Mac-based program that came with the drive, but it won't let me drag any pictures (or folders) into the drive when it's plugged in. It says it cannot be modified. Any suggestions on how to get my pictures from my computer to the external hard drive? What I might be missing or doing wrong?
Thanks!

If it's a large hard drive and it is formatted for Windows, it is probably formatted as NTFS. Although Mac OS X can read and write the older Windows format (FAT32), It can only read NTFS. That is probably why it won't let you drag files and folders to the drive, when connected to a Mac.
If you are going to be using it with the Mac going forward, you should run Disk Utility. Go to the Erase tab, and use the +Volume Format+ of +Mac OS Extended (Journaled)+. This will obviously erase the drive, so copy off files you want to retain before doing so. That is the native Mac formatting. You will then be able to use the external drive just as you use the internal drive.

Similar Messages

Moving projects between external hard drives lose clips

Sorry for the unclear subject line, but I really can't think of a quippy way to say what the problem is.
Short version--I moved project from external hard drive A to external hard drive B. Worked on A. Worked on B. Moved it back to A (still have copy on B). No longer works on A. Clips show up in the timeline, but on screen is white. Transitions, titles, audio don't work. Still works on B.
Ideas?
Long version--I'm using 10.3.9 on my old Powerbook. iMovie 6.0.3. I am using Lacie Porsche 250GB external and a Mercury Elite Pro 500 GB hard drives. When I started, the Lacie, which I was using for my speaking career videos, was NOT formatted for Mac OS Extended (Journaled). So, while working on another project, I had issues with the infamous Ken Burns bug with pictures.
After consulting with the experts here (thanks Karl), I determined that I must reformat. So, pain and anguish, I moved the various movies off of the Lacie (Drive A) to the Mercury (Drive B). On both, the movies worked fine--all transitions, everything. The Mercury was and is Mac OS Extended (but NOT Journaled).
So, I wipe the Lacie with Disk Utility so it is Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Once finished, I begin the process of moving projects (3 in total) back to the Lacie. Two of the projects are completed works with transitions, audio file, titles and the like. One is just clips in the clip pane, none in the timeline. I moved them all at once.
When I did, I checked them before I would delete them off the Mercury. When I did, both of the completed projects loaded properly--the clips do show in the timeline. But, in the preview window, all I have is a blank white screen. When I play, nothing happens.
I have not erased anything, changed anything, thrown anything away--nothing. And, they still work perfectly on the Mercury (same computer, obviously).
This one really has me stumped. I am really irked that iMovie has apparently become such a messed up program. Worse, this has been out for some time now (I had not used it yet, but I got iLife last year some time). I can't believe there are all these issues all this time later and obviously Apple has done nothing or little to correct these problems. I consider iMovie a real flagship program to model the ease of use and blah blah blah that we all know concerning Apple.
OK, sorry for venting---anyone with any ideas? Did I mess up the drive when I wiped it? Is this merely the program? Something between the fact that the Mercury is NOT Journalled? Any help will, as always, be appreciated.

Thanks David---
The Permissions are the same for both, on both hard drives.
I have not repaired permissions on either.
I did shut down the computer last night and this AM, upon starting again, had the same problem.
I did attempt a few fixes--I moved the clips from the timeline back to the preview pane. I had one clip already there and it would play perfectly. When I did that, with a clip from the timeline and then moved it back, it would show up and play. But, upon hitting the next clip, it would stop playing at the first transition.
Some of the transitions are from a Third Party (Gee). Remember, though, they played perfectly fine from Drive B. I have not attempted, however, to put the Gee effects into iMovie 6. As I said earlier, I haven't used the program on my computer since the Fall. Now, using 6.0.3, I don't see my GeeThree effects anywhere, nor have I tried to put them in. But, from the Drive B (and originally in the drive A), the movie plays fine even though the added clips are not present for me to use in any new project.

Moving Content to External Hard Drive and Using New Computers

Before doing this, I want to make sure I know how to do all of it:
We are going to buy two new laptops, and retire the old one. I want to move all of my iTunes content from the old laptop to an external hard drive attached to an Airport Extreme. I then want to be able to share the content between the two computers. I know how to do this, and plan to move the library data base files to the external hard drive, as well.
However, I also want to be able to continue synching all of the content to the Apple TV. To what should the Apple TV be synched after the content is moved to the external hard-drive and the old computer is replaced by two new computers? How is that done under the circumstances? And, in the meantime, will the Apple TV lose all of its content and need to be re-synched entirely from scratch, or will it continue recognizing the current iTunes library as moved to the external hard drive?
Thanks!

This is an option, although as a note of caution; depending on how regularly you modify your library this could become a little bit of a chore. The option is likely a good one in many cases but not all.
In my own case I considered using an old mac as my media server in the sense mentioned by tmartine. (I do a bit of experimental stuff and need to restart my mac quite often, I also have 5 Apple tv's and a library which is too large to do anything but stream, my family don't take too kindly to my frequent restarts and I find myself waiting until the early hours).
However I also modify my itunes library on a daily basis, I buy quite a bit of stuff and also add my own movies regularly, as well as make several recordings a day through my eyetv, all this new content would need to be manually added to my (server) library (and deleted manually), I felt this would be too many extra things for me to do and so my personal preference is to have my itunes library on my main computer as the primary library.

Moving picture from laptop hard drive to larger external hard drive

I am not changing anything in my system. I am using windows 7 and will continue to. No change in elements version (10). Please give me a step by step instructions on how to move my pictures from my computer hard drive to an external hard drive (this will NOT be a back up) but the primary locaton for my pictures. I will keep elements program on my computer and when I want to work on my pictures or download more pictures from my camera I will connect to the external hard drive.

Jan9368 wrote:
A few questions
When I drag and drop my pictures am I looking at my pictures in elements organizer?
No, there are two ways to see your folders in PSE11 and PSE12 :
By default, it's the 'My Pictures' view. It shows a flat list of all the folders containing images registered in the catalog; all the folder of the last level, without the tree organization. You may have missed (like many, many users...) the 'Pictures' view which you obtain in clicking on the small yellow icon in the title bar of 'My Pictures'. You are shown all your folders and subfolders, all your different drives. It's very close to the folder view of Windows explorer, and you can do most of the operations you would do in the explorer.
You'll understand better if you take the time to play with the 'Pictures' view, where you can collapse or expand subfolders, or right click to show 'display all folders' when they are collapsed.
Let's say you have all your pictures under the default 'Pictures' folder of Win7. You should see the list of your drives in the lower part of the same left panel.
I suppose you don't want to change the default 'Pictures' location in Win7. If your external drive has the letter F:, you'll create a new master folder : 'F:/My Pictures bis' for instance. To test the process, you'll select one of your folders under Pictures, drag and drop on F:/My Pictures bis. Then you can check the result by viewing your pictures in different order, by testing your tags, albums etc. All should work exactly the same as before as long as your external drive is plugged in. (If it is not, you'll get 'missing files' warnings which will disappear if you plug in your external drive).
When you are satisfied with the process, you can move other folders (their subfolders will follow).
You could move only the upper level 'Pictures' folder of Win7 in a single step, but you'll feel more secure by doing this in several moves, since moving a big amount of files takes a long time (not longer than a move via the explorer, moving a library of 150 GB like mine requires maybe 2 hours...)
Since you are on Win7, be sure to give all the access rigths to your external drive...
Another Windows trick : the catalog will remember and register the letter drive, F: in our example.
If you plug-in another accessory in the meantime and the drive is now assigned G:, you'll have problem.
The best way to avoid such a case would be to assign a letter like M: so that your external drive will be recognized in all cases.

Moved files to external hard drive, can't find my edits in lightroom

I'm using Lightroom 4 on a Mac.
I recently moved all my pictures onto an external hard drive, and nothing I've read yet has been able to help relocate my edited pictures in Lightroom.
In lightroom, beside the Folder heading I have clicked the + and added my external drive - it shows it's green and live.
All the pictures I originally had saved on my Mac hard drive are now showing on the external drive - good.
In lightroom, the subfolders in my Mac hard drive are now showing with question marks that the files are missing - which they are, because they're now on my external drive.
What my problem is, all the editing I had done on these photos in lightroom before is now gone. How do I get the editing work I had done on these pictures to show up on the external drive pictures? If I look at my pictures on the Mac hard drive, they show they're faded and missing, but it shows all my edits still on the pictures. On the external drive, it shows the original version of the pictures with no editing done.
Note: I backed up my computer before I moved all my pictures, so if I need to put them back on my mac's hard drive I am able to do that.

Update
I was able to solve my problem. If anyone comes across the issue I was trying to fix, I suggest trying to move the files from WITHIN lightroom.
Originally I had used my OS to move my picture folders onto an external hard drive, by just click and drag. Lightroom was not able to keep the editing I had done on those pictures after they were moved. I restored a backup on my Mac and put the folders back to their original location. Then within the lightroom program, I was able to move the picture folders (with their edits) onto my external hard drive.
Julieanne Kost had a helpful video http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-evangelists-julieanne-kost/questions-about-lightroom-and-p hoto-management/

Moved iTunes to external hard drive, iTunes can't find location of music

I recently moved my iTunes and library to an external hard drive as my laptop was running too slowly.
Suddenly I can't play any music (only some podcasts) directly from my iTunes. Those selected in my iPod Selection folder will play on my iPod.
There is an exclamation mark icon in the column next to the name. I've looked in the library and all the songs are there in .m4a format.
Does anyone know what I can do??????
Cheers
Kate

Windows will change the letter of the external drive you moved your stuff to inadvertently. If you go into control panel, computer management and drives. you will see the drives listed. Try changing the drive letter back to the original drive letter when you moved the files, right click on the external drive and change it back to f: or g:, making sure to unplug any other usb sticks/memory sticks drives you might have used since the last time you moved your files to the external drive. Do this a couple of times if it happens again and xp will remember to reserve that drive name for you.

Moving library to external hard drive and get the error "Copying files failed. The disk could not be read from or written to"

Hello,
I'm moving my library to an external hard drive.
I've made sure to use the 'Keep iTunes Media Folder Organized' option when pointing to the new library location.
I select 'File'->'Library'->'Organize Library', I select to 'Consolidate Files', click 'OK' and get ther error message "Copying files failed. The disk could not be read from or written to".
I've read elsewhere that there may be a corrupted file that I need to sequester somehow and perhaps add it back however I'm not certain how I can locate that file because the status window doesn't indicate which file it's attempting to transfer when the error appears.
Any tips?
Thank you,
Greg H
iTunes 10.6.3

OK I figured it out!
It was a dodgy file....I sorted the file folders by date, and as it turned out within the "compilations" folder there was a CD where only about half the tracks seemed to have been copied over. Could not have identified this simply from the time indicated on the finder folder sort, because there were several CDs copied over in the that same minute.
I went back to the original itunes folder, deleted all the files from that CD in itunes, then also deleted all those files from the original disk and the target disk.
Tried the "consolidate library" again, and it completed nicely. 200megs of music and videos.
Very happy to solve this problem after 3 weeks.

How to get batch recognition of (!) on some tracks after moving library from external hard drive to new iMac (with terabyte hard drive)?

I'm using Lion 10.7.2 and iTunes 10.5.2
I have moved my iTunes music from an external hard drive onto my new iMac (with a terabyte hard drive) with music folder organized - when I try to play some tracks I get the iTunes can't locate warning and so I follow through and show iTunes the track - they are all in the music folder on my iMac hard drive - they all copied over and they all appear in the iTunes library list - so far as I can tell out of a 500 gigabyte music collection - but there are so many giving me the error - many other tracks function as they should too, some work others don't - So I'm looking for a way to get all the error tracks fixed in a batch correction way. Doing this individually with each track just isn't realistic.
Can anyone suggest how I might fix this issue?
Also, after I show iTunes the song location and it plays, I get a find files prompt that looks like it wants to find other files, but that just causes the process to jam and I have to force quit iTunes and then it doesn't remember what I last showed it next time I open iTunes.
Also I'm trying to avoid the use of the consolidate function because that would copy a whole other set of music - not in iTunes - that is in the process of being edited (audio hijack pro and fission tools being used to put vinyl and tapes to mp3) But all that other music just means the consolodate function across my whole computer would be too much.

Some details seem to be coming into focus - I have started scrolling through the main library list A to Z repairing tracks individually (there are thousands, but it's what works so far) - as I work through, it appears the problem occurred on tracks where album artist metadata was different than song artist metadata, predominantly. I'm not sure that is 100% the case in every instance, but that is what it's looking like. I don't why that happened, must be some technical glich I guess.
Also, I tried running Doug's Scripts - the one titled, iTunes Track CPR v1.3 - it is supposed to fix exactly the kind of issue I'm having - I bet it would work for some people with a similar issue - but for my case it only identifies the 'de-linked' tracks and doesn't repair them - that is at least helpful as I scroll though to fix them - I can see exactly which tracks have the issue quickly after running that script - but iTunes doesn't remember that warning symbol after a log-out, so it's only worth running the script on a set of tracks I intend to review and fix in any given session at a time.
If you are interested, Doug's free scripts can be found at
http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=itunestrackcpr
there are other interesting and useful iTunes scripts there too...
also, unrelated to the issue I'm having, I found a lot of really useful and time saving metadata fixing free scripts at - hubi's iTunes scripts - the page isn't English, but the script download is easy to find -
hubi's scripts work for batch selections of tracks - so if you import an album and find the metadata screwed up somehow, you can select the whole set of screwed up tags at once (even across a series of albums), run the easy to use script, and watch it all be fixed automatically while you sit back and relax...
http://hubionmac.com/wordpress/category/softwareschmiede/applescripting/itunes/
just for reference, here is a sampling of what hubi's scripts can do...
there are other useful scripts out there - the tough part can be finding the one that helps you...
01-(un)capitalizes
01-(un)capitalizes
This script changes.... THIS TEXT into This Text... or this text
01-Delete spaces
Sometimes invisible blanks are behind an artist name or album name...this script deletes these blanks behind or infront of the strings
01-Delete x first-last chars. of Title
A Name like "01--Ray Of Light" will be changed to "Ray Of Light" and the01 will be entered in the tracks tracknumber id3 field =)
01-fix combined Artist-Title
Sometimes Tracknames look like:
"Madonna---Ray of Light" and in the artist field you see something like"Ripped by Me"... this script puts Madonna back to the right field... all youhave to do is to enter the right delimiter ("---" in this case)
01-switch Artist<->Title...
Switch ID3 field a with ID3 field b (not only Artist with Title any more =)!
01-z_filename ->Title
Sets the ID3 field Title to the track's filename)
01-z_trackNr-Filename->ID3
When a track's filename look like "01-Madonna-Ray of Light.mp3" andyou don't have the track's tracknumber stored in the ID3 Tag... this Scriptcan do this for your =)

Artwork no longer shows up after moving media to external hard drive

I recently, and successfully, moved all my media over to a continuously connected external hard drive. Although my media folder and all music, movies, and apps are there, No NEW art work downloads when I buy a new movie or song. I've also noticed that, under the old iTnes folder there are still folders there for Album Artwork/Cache/Download. Should these also be moved over to the new drive or somehow linked in some way?

If you moved the iTunes folder to your external drive, you moved the iTunes library file - iTunes Library.itl, which is in that folder.
You need to tell iTunes where it is, start iTunes with the shift key held down and iTunes should ask you to choose a library.

Time Machine backup? pictures and external hard drive

I know this question has been asked before but I just wanted to make sure of something. Does a basic Time Machine backup backup all photos? And also a real basic question-- Is a Apple Time Capsule the same as a external hard drive?

You can save the pictures in Time Machine backup.. that is not a problem and what the TC is designed for.
You cannot off load the pictures from the internal disk of the computer and use the Time Capsule as the drive for a running library.. that is when it will get corrupted.. if you need more space for a library use External drive that plugs in by USB or FW or Thunderbolt. And it must be formatted standard Mac OS extend journaled.. then Time Machine can backup the drive to the Time Capsule.
I should also use the language more carefully.. the TC is fine for files even of pictures.. but it is unsuitable for an iphoto library or aperture library. I am always assuming on a Mac when people talk about pictures then they mean a library.. but if you save raw pictures from the camera onto a TC directly that is fine. The only issue that then arises is no automated backups.. TC is not a NAS in the normal sense of the word.. Every NAS has a built automated backup.. TC does not. You also cannot backup files on the TC using TM.. it was designed as a Target for Time Machine backups Not as a source. There are other backup products that will work.. but then you will need to figure out where to back up file to.. and the worst possible place is the USB on the TC.

HELP!!! Moving files to external hard drive.

I am in desperate need of help. I bought a new external hard drive to move all of my MP3 files to. I had about 40GB of music on my desktop hard drives and moved them all to the external hard drive. Not realizing that I had to configure iTunes first, when I opened Itunes, I found that there was a duplicate copy of EVERY song in the list (one that would not play b/c it could not be found) and that none of the songs on my many playlists would play (b/c could not be found.)
I tried doing some research on here and changed the iTunes music folder location to the new hard drive as well as deleted the old folder, chose to 'Organized Library' and 'Consolodate Library'. And now everything is just a complete mess.
The copies of all MP3 files still remain and the hard drive has organized all of the files in the new locations into multiple folder. I no longer just have a straight alphbetical listning of my music files (which is what I prefer).
Can someone please help me fix this problem? I'm afraid to plug my iPod into the system b/c it might render all of the files on it unplayabe and will destroy the playlists. How do I get rid of all of the 'cannot be found files' duplicates and get the program to recognize that the songs in all of the playlists needs to be played from the new location on the new hard drive?
Am I just screwed?
MUCH thanks and appreciation in advance.
I'm using iTunes 7 and Windows XP, by the way.

Hey chuck4pele,
Unfortunately, at this point, it is difficult, for me, to know what the situation is with out being there.
What I can do is refer you to these, for possibly more understanding of the way iTunes works.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iTunesWin/7.0/en/567win.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iTunesWin/7.0/en/600win.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iTunesWin/7.0/en/670win.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93732
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301509
Hope this helps,
Generik

Moved itunes to external hard drive - Keep getting ipod recovery/ restore

I moved itunes to an external hard drive and have had problems ever since. My itunes application seems to be fine but it keeps telling me that I cannot use itunes until I restore the ipod. I've followed the instructions to both restore AND change drive but nothing is working. Any suggestions anyone? Thx!

Thanks so much for taking the time to help me. I followed the instructions in the post, and was able to recover a substantial part of my library in iTunes. But now I'm worried that when I synch my iPod to iTunes, it will reduce the content on the iPod to match iTunes. I searched more in the discussions, and see that I might be able to use 3rd party software to copy from iPod to iTunes. any advice if I go that route? Thanks again!

Moved music to external Hard Drive. Now Itunes cant find Music

Moved my Itunes to an external hard drive and went through preferences in Itunes with the location. However, when I click on the music, Itunes cannot play and I have to manually link the library to the song to the new location. I have over 300 songs in Itunes as well as videos and photos.
Am I going to have to manually link each file? Or is there an easier way?
I am using Windows XP
Thanks

If you moved the files then you have to re-link the files. Using iTunes to move the files would maintain the links.
This article gives the details.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305451

Moved iTunes to external hard drive, now library is empty

I moved my iTunes ver 7 from my full hard drive to an external hard drive. It worked fine, was able to synch iPod. Then I upgraded to ver 8.0.2 and when I open iTunes the library is empty. I changed the "path" in the Preferences/Advanced window but it didn't help. I know my music is still there- the folder shows 38.0 gb, but how do I get iTunes to find it? Thanks for any help.

Thanks so much for taking the time to help me. I followed the instructions in the post, and was able to recover a substantial part of my library in iTunes. But now I'm worried that when I synch my iPod to iTunes, it will reduce the content on the iPod to match iTunes. I searched more in the discussions, and see that I might be able to use 3rd party software to copy from iPod to iTunes. any advice if I go that route? Thanks again!

Moved Itunes to external hard drive & now Ipod not showing up in itunes?

I recently installed an external hard drive and moved Itunes and all my music to it. Now when I plug in my Ipod, Itunes doesn't recognize it. And it doesn't show up in my computer, but the pod says its "connected". It does show up in the USB devices and so does the hard drive, but they are listed seperately. But both devices are plugged into the same USB spliter.
what is happening?
help!!!

Hi, BreezerSB2.
It sounds like you may not have followed the instructions described in this article in the Apple Knowledge Base.
If that's not possible - or you don't want to do so - and the music files are in fact on your external drive, you can add them to your iTunes Library by referring to this article 's Add to Library section.

Moving Pictures to External Hard Drive

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