Multiple iTunes on External Hard Drive?

I am wondering if I can have multiple iTunes libraries on a Maxtor External Hard Drive? My husband has one for his desktop and there is PLENTY of space and now my laptop is low on disk space so I need to move my iTunes to an external drive as well. Is there a way to have both our iTunes on the external hard drive that doesn't consist of playlists managing? I have the iPod nano and he has an iPod classic. Any thoughts.

Presuming you have iTunes 7, you can just drag the entire iTunes folder (the entire folder, not just the iTunes Music folder) to your desired location. Then hold down the Shift key while launching iTunes. You'll be given a dialog box where you can select the iTunes library you want to use. Navigate to and select the iTunes folder in it's new location. If you're using the same user account in Windows, your husband will do the same thing when he wants to re-select his own library. Don't launch iTunes until the external hard drive is connected, on and mounted or iTunes will automatically default back to the internal hard drive when launched.

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Restoring itunes from external hard drive

-I used WD backup program to store itunes on external hard drive
-hard drive on mac pro crashed, replaced hard drive
-trying to restore itunes songsa from external drive and when I copied songs from external hard drive to new internal hard drive which has itunes program, only song titles appear and track number for songs I ripped from CDs. All info is present for songs I purchased from itunes (why is there a difference in the way these two are restored???)
-Can I restore itunes from external drive so that artist and album are associated with each song title I ripped from CDs?
Much appreciate all assistance. Thanks.

I know MP3 and AAC save tag data, and I believe AIFF does as well (if you want to keep them in full-quality but space-greedy format). I don't think WAV supports tagging which is why they were lost. Read:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9558241&#9558241
This time make sure you have a complete backup of your itunes folder (which, in fact you may still have). That way you can recover your complete library and everything intact (as long as you keep your backups up to date).
Here is a related topic
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9267109&#9267109

How do I copy iTunes from external hard drive to iMac?

How do I copy iTunes from external
Hard drive to iMac?

if your main library is on your external, then when not connected, you wont have access to it.
so first decide, where do you want to keep the files.
E.g. In my case, I keep my files on "C:\iTunes Music".
I have a backup on external "Z:\iTunes Backup". If I format my laptop, this is how I restore everything.
Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced.
The iTunes music folder in selects as "C:\iTunes Music"
I have checked Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized, and also Copy Files to iTunes Music folder when adding to ibrary". Click OK to save and close preferences.
My iTunes list is now empty. I go to file, and select "Add Folder to Library". From that window, I select "Z:\iTunes Backup". iTunes then copies everything from the backup to "C:\iTunes Music". For me, backup is backup, I dont need it to play music.
Now decide this. If you do not want to keep music on C:, but want to only connect the external to update music on your ipod, do this:
In preferences, set iTunes Music folder as "Z:\iTunes Backup", and uncheck Copy files to iTunes Music folder, since they are already there. Then in files, select Add folder to library again to build and update the list.

HT1660 How do I run itunes from external Hard drive?

How do I run itunes from external hard drive. I only have ssd on PC and media is too large to fit

You do not.
iTunes, like all programs is installed on the C drive.
You can store the media on another drive.
Assuming you are moving an existing library from another computer:
Move or Copy the ENTIRE iTunes folder from the old computer to the new computer and put it where you want it.
Install iTunes using the default options.
Hold <SHIFT> while launching iTunes. It will prompt to create a new library or locate an existing library.
Select the option to locate an existing library.
Point iTunes to the iTunesLibrary.itl file in the iTunes folder that was moved from the old computer.

ITunes to External Hard Drive

I've been trying to read through these threads, but I'm still not sure I'm finding what I'm looking for. Okay, so I have an external hard drive and I want to move my entire iTunes library onto it. Here's a few things I've read in the forums that I don't want to happen. First, I don't want any copies of the music left on my computer's internal hard drive. Second, I don't want the music files to be duplicated if I move them back into my iTunes library. If I want to play music in iTunes do I have to move my entire library back from my external hard drive? Currently, my ipod is set to sync all files, music, photos, etc. automatically. When I make changes on my iPod whether I add or delete things, it reflects on my iPod. If I plug my iPod into my computer after I've moved all my files to my external hard drive will this wipe out all my music, settings, files, etc.off my iPod? I am really nervous about moving everything because I'm afraid it will eliminate everything on my iPod and out of iTunes making it all irretrievable. If you guys could give me clear instructions on how to do the things I'm asking it would be much appreciated.
Thank you!

It depends on how big your library is. for me 1T wasnt enough so i had to go for the larger option. I looked at all the options in this one and settled on the WD Sharespace. It has 4x1T or 4x2T internal drives.
The benefit of this 4 bay setup is that you can use Raid 5, This means your info is split across all four drives but each drive also holds parity information. This means that if a drive fails you can recover the information automatically from the remaining drives and still use your info while doing so. I am running 8T and get about 6.5 of useful storage.. The device is ethernet enabled so it is a fast access and can be shared on your network as a server.
The best other alternative is to use the mirror option ( Raid1) but this will only give you half the space available as storage and the other half as a backup. This is the case with the LaCie. 2T equals 1T of Storage and 1T of Backup. The advantage here is that if one disk dies you don't have to rebuild the information just switch drives..
Raid 0 is the one where the information is written to the multiple disks as one virtual disk. IE no Backup. While this gives you lots of storage, if you are moving to a multi TB drive your library is precious enough to want to back it up.
Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
Finally to answer your question Itunes gets confused if you try and keep different items in different locations. It is better to keep everything in your media folder, just put it on a big,fast external disc with backup.
Hope this helps

ITunes w/ external hard drives

Right now I have all of my music on 3 external hard drives and want to consolidate to 2 1TB hard drives. Once I have all the files organized on the 2 new hard drives what is the easiest way to make iTunes recognize the new hard drives as the sources for the music? Thanks.

Not sure I have an answer for you, but have a question on your setup. You iTunes Library is spread across multiple external HDs? How did you accomplish this? by de-selecting "Keep iTunes Library organized" or something like that (not at home infront of my Mac at the moment)?
I have an external 500 GB that I partitioned to be 250 iTunes and 250 Time Machine. I have since gotten a new Mac and an external 1 TB for Time Machine. I left my iTunes folder on the 250GB partition, but can not expand to the second, now empty, former TM partition. I would like to do so as I have only about 10 GB free space on my iTunes drive. Thoughts?

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.

Problems trying to store iTunes on external hard drive and back up iPhone to internal hard drive?

Hi
I have been tirelessly trying to relocate my entire iTunes function to an external hard drive to free space on my laptop. I have migrated the iTunes library (from the 'My Music' location on laptop) to ext hard drive and also reinstalled iTunes, asking to save all files during set up to the ext drive (not in default 'Program Files' on laptop). I have also pointed iTunes to the library's new location on the ext hard drive. I did this after reading a recommendation on here that it is better to have both my library and all other iTunes files in the same place.
One of the problems is when I have moved the library, it has for some reason created two iTunes folders on the ext drive with different music in each, but the library database file is only available in one of them, and I am not sure if all the music from both folders is available in iTunes.
Another huge issue is that when I have tried to back up my iPhone to the computer (as recommended to do after migrating the iTunes program to another location), it is not letting the process complete; I get an error message saying it cannot save to the computer. It seems the location of the back ups (C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup) isn't compatible with the new location of my library etc (on my ext drive)and from searching the internet for a solution, it seems you can't change the location of where back ups of an iPhone are stored.
So, does anyoine know if there is a fix-all solution to these dilemmas? Or should I just keep my library on one drive and the iTunes program on my int drive?
Thanks in advance
VR

Hmm.
I'm sure I'd successfully tested the command line version of the move instructions at one point, but I'm getting the same "access denied" error when I try. Maybe "Move" doesn't like working with folders when the path contains sections with hidden or system flags. Anyway herewith version 3 which I've just tested works as described...
Relocate iOS device backups
Assuming you're running Windows Vista or later you can use the following steps:
Using Windows Explorer move the current Mobile Sync Backup folder from C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup to your chosen location, e.g. as X:\Backup where <User> is your Windows user name and X: is your preferred drive.
To make iTunes look for the data in the new location open a command prompt by hitting the start button and typing CMD<Enter> in the search box that opens up, then type in this command and press <Enter>
MkLink /J "C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup" "X:\Backup"
If your external drive has a different letter or you already have a folder called "Backup" then edit "X:\Backup" accordingly.
If you're still running Windows XP you can use Junction (cmd line tool) or NTFSLink (shell ext). In both cases you move the existing folder to a new location, create an empty folder where the old one used to be, then use the tools to get the operating system to link the two together and silently redirect any file operation on the old location through to the new one.
Note that while this method works for iOS device backups it cannot be used to redirect sections of the media library. iTunes will break the connection the first time it tries to write a file to the target folder.
What happens when you want to sync the device? If you're getting a warning about erasing and reloading the device with media from the current library then something is wrong. If you moved the library files correctly and then reconnected them to iTunes this should still be the "home" library of the device and it should sync as if nothing had changed. If not then revist the make a split library portable post for advice. See also Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device if for some reason you accidentally erased the original library files and all backups thereof.
tt2

Problem with itunes and external hard drive

I've have recently downloaded the newest version of itunes, I also have an external hard drive with 40gbs of music on.
When I open itunes preferences and set library to an external one, none of my music copies to itunes.
I have tried to individually copy music folders to itunes, but my whole mac freeze's
Any advice please?

You might find this article useful: iLounge - Managing your iTunes Library on an External Hard Drive

Itunes on external hard drive wont open in Win7

I have my itunes stored on an external hard drive using Windows XP. I have just changed my computer to a Win7 version, and now I cant access my library. I can see it there but cannot find the correct path to it. I have been able to access it on my old XP PC so it still works OK, but frustrated not being able to get it to work on a later OS/computer.

Do you have the itunes database file from XP also on the exHD?
iTunes Library.itl
Copy it from XP onto the exHD.
Then connect the exHD to Win 7, do a shift-start of itunes.
Which means, press *AND HOLD* the shift key while starting itunes, keep pressing until you get the prompt. Then browse to the exHD and choose the ITL file you copied over.

How can I transfer Itunes from external hard drive to a new computer?

Hello,
I had a Dell laptop with Windows XP on it recently crash, but I have everything saved to a Seamagine external 1 terabyte hard drive. I have about 250 gigabytes of media on it, mostly CD's and audiobooks. The setup I had on the XP computer was my Itunes folder saved on the C drive, but I kept all the actual music and audiobooks on the external hard drive, which was labeled the F drive.
After the crash, a relative sold me their three year old Compaq laptop, with Windows 7 instead of XP as the OS. My relative already had Itunes downloaded on it, but when I opened the Itunes on the new (new to me) laptop, Itunes only recognized their (my relative's) account. So, I uninstalled their Itunes and then I re-downloaded Itunes for 64-bit Windows 7. I then opened the Windows Explorer folder so to drag and drop my backed up Itunes folder and library information from the old C drive to the new Itunes folder in the new C drive. But, it wouldn't do anything. It still wanted the password info from my relative's account. It wouldn't recognize my account, even though I had uninstalled and then reinstalled a newer version of Itunes. Dragging and dropping my backed-up Itunes folder from my external hard drive to the new C drive didn't work because it said it didn't have certain permissions or something like that. I think I might have downloaded a newer version of Itunes, different from what I had saved a couple of days ago, which might be one of the problems here, not to mention that I switched OS's from XP to Windows 7.
When I plugged the external hard drive USB into the new laptop no Seamagine manager came up for user-friendly accessibility. I didn't know what to do, so I installed Seagate Dashboard onto the new computer. It didn't do anything for me either. No problem, I thought, I'll just use Windows Explorer to move the Itunes library, and then once I transfer (i.e., drag and drop) the old Itunes folder to the one, all will be as it was. I could then direct my Itunes account to use my external hard drive as the media source folder. I was wrong. It won't let me do that either. It says I don't have permission to do it.
How c an I get my old Itunes library info onto the C drive of this new computer, but keep the 250GB of media files on the external hard drive, just like the setup I had on the old laptop before it crashed? If you can help me, then you will be my hero. I'm scared to death that I've lost my library info and afraid to mess with it too much more for fear of erasing it or, worse, losing the 250 GB of media that is on the external hard drive, which has taken me a tremendous amount of time and money to compile. It is, in effect, irreplaceable. I'm very worried and frustrated. I've been working on this for days, to no avail. You're my last hope. Thank you.

Hmm, I think we should start over...
Here are the typical layouts for the iTunes folders:
In the image above the red outline denotes the "media folder", that is the folder listed under Edit > Preferences > Advanced. In the standard layout where the "media folder" is inside the "library folder" the iTunes library has the advantage of being self-contained and portable. Since you've lost the "library folder" from your old computer you're going to have to start over so you might as well get organized properly.
If the folder curently holding your media files is called G:\iTunes then rename it as G:\Media.
The support doc How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one explains how to create a new iTunes library where you want it. In short click the icon to start iTunes and immediately press and hold down the shift key. Keep holding until asked to choose or create a library, click Create and browse to G:\, make sure the folder is going to be called iTunes and click save.
Move the folder that actually holds the media inside the folder G:\iTunes\iTunes Media. We're going to let iTunes reorganize everything (unless you have a collection of .wav files in which case stop and tell me because they require a different approach).
Use File > Add folder to library and select the folder G:\iTunes\iTunes Media. iTunes will search through the whole series of subfolders adding all media files into the library and reorganizing them into the correct artist & album folders.
Again, for data security, you really ought to obtain a second external drive at some point and backup your library to it. Only having one copy, as you have found, leaves you vulnerable to failure. External drives are no less prone to it.
A) Windows uses \ as a folder separator in path descriptions, Mac uses /.
B) Do you have a backup of the iTunes folder that was on drive C:\ or are you simply referring to the location of your media as a "backup" when it really the only copy? If you have a backup copy of your "original" iTunes library you could move/copy that to G:\iTunes shift-start-iTunes to open it, and then I can offer tools or techniques for fixing the links that will be broken becuase the drive letter has changed.
C) Use Store > Sign out and then Store > Sign in to sign into your iTunes account. You will also need to use Store > Authorize the computer to allow playback and transfer of any protected content. If your new library contains protected content from any other accounts then you will have to authorize the computer for those too.
tt2

Moved Itunes to External hard drive and Itunes can't find them

I went to the Apple Store at the Grove on Friday. An employee there printed out these instructions:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748
I followed the instructions. All my music is on my external hard drive now (My Book). When I open Itunes all the songs in the entire library have a circle with ! in them.
It says the song could not be used because the file could not be found. When I search My Book the song plays and the ! is removed. I have several thousand songs. Do I have to do this with each and every one?
Also, I can't import new cd's now.
Can anyone help?
Thanks, Vicki

Try this -> iTunes Track CPR v1.3

Is it really possible to operate iTunes from external hard drive?

The internal hard drive on my Mac Book Pro is full and most of it is music for iTunes. I have been told that it is possible to operate iTunes from a library on an external drive but it hasn't worked for me. I have moved the iTunes folder on to my external hard drive. Then I did two things...First, I opened iTunes while pressing the "alt" key. Then I clicked on "choose library" and directed it to the iTunes folder on the external hard drive. Second, I opened Preferences>Advanced>iTunes Media Folder Location and then clicked on "Change" and directed that to the iTunes folder on my external hard drive. It should work right? Well, it worked the day that I did it but the next day I had "!" beside every song in my library of nearly 10,000 songs. It says that it can't find the location of the song file and asks if I would like to find it. When I show it where the file is it works but it will take me forever to do that with each individual song. Can this really be done successfully?

One question. What is NAS?
Here is a link http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751 . I did it exactly this way the first time I tried, including consolidating and the organize library part but it made a mess of my iTunes folder. Luckily I had it backed up on another partition of my hard drive using Time Machine. So, I deleted the iTunes folder and started over.
I dragged the iTunes folder over last night to the partition on my hard drive that I want to operate iTunes from. It took about an hour or so to copy the files over but the iTunes folder looks organized the way it should be again. Then I Alt>Clicked on iTunes in the dock and picked create library. Then I directed it to the new iTunes folder. Next I chose preferences>Advanced>Change media folder location and directed that to the new Itunes folder. Then it asked me if I would like iTunes to organize the folder(or something to that effect). I can't remember exactly but I chose "No" or "Cancel" this time, I didn't the first time. It has been working ever since but I am waiting for something to go wrong. Because, it worked last time for a day and then stopped.

Problem; itunes and external hard drive

I saved my musics to my external hard drive and imported them to my itunes library, and tried to modify their tags, but everything in info section was inactive and couldn't be modified. but once i move the file to internal drive, it works fine no matter where it is stored afterwards. what's the problem here? I've already tried deselecting the read-only attribute.

You would have to change the tags while working inside the external drive. Then when you look at them through iTunes you will see the changes that you made.

HT1351 I upgraded from Vista to Windows 7. I saved my iTunes on external hard drive and reinstalled them. My iTunes no longer recognizes my device - a 5th gen. iPod. I can's synch

I upgraded my Dell computer from Vista to Windows 7. I saved my iTunes library on an external hard drive. I somehow managed to erase them from my iPod. Now my songs won't play on the Dell and my iPod is not "recognized" as a device by my computer. I have "reset" the iPod by toggling the lock and holding down the menu and center button at once, but still no luck. How can I get my songs from my Dell back to my iPod?

At a guess you followed the process in HT1364 - iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Media folder which would have moved the media folder to a new path of your choice. This process leaves the library database files back in the original location of <User's Music>\iTunes. Often people assume that all they need is now on the external drive and wipe the internal drive, or discard their old computer, before backing up the all important iTunes folder. If you have a backup of your user's profile folder from before the upgrade the iTunes library folder should be in there somewhere. Restore it to <User's Music> and your original library should pop back into existence. The external drive would need to have the same drive letter that it had previously.
A more effective way to relocate the library is to move the entire iTunes folder to the external drive, then hold down shift when starting iTunes and keep holding until asked to choose or create a library. You would then choose the file iTunes Library.itl in the iTunes folder on the external drive. If this is the way you moved the library before then that is how you should now reconnect to it. Changing the media folder in preferences doesn't change which .itl database file is opened, nor does double-clicking on an .itl file directly.
If you no longer have the original .itl file then you will have to build a new library and import the media to it. If you need to do this I would recommend you create a new library at F:\iTunes, then move your existing media folders inside F:\iTunes\iTunes Media before importing. This will avoid the creation of duplicates and make sure the library is in the correct shape going forwards.
If you have an iPod or iOS device my scripts ImportDevicePlaylists and SyncStats may well let you recover ratings, play counts & playlists from the device.
When you've fixed up your libray you should consider getting a second external drive to backup to.
tt2

Multiple iTunes on External Hard Drive?

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