My iTunes won't let me add music from a file, button stays on open and not add! don't know what to do!

Question

I have been trying to add music files to my library however the button is alway OPEN, and not add.  I have tried updating my itunes, dragging and dropping, and again trying to open it in add file.  Please help! I don't know what else to do.
christy

Answer 1

It wants to erase your iPhone because you are not syncing it to the same library.
Your i-device was not designed for unique storage of your media. It is not a backup device and media transfer was planned with you maintaining a master copy of your media on a computer which is itself properly backed up against loss.  To use a device with a new computer you transfer the content from the old computer (or its backup) directly to the new computer, not the device to the new computer. Syncing is one way, computer to device, updating the device content to the content on the computer, not updating or restoring content on a computer. The exception is iTunes Store purchases which can be transferred to a computer.
iTunes Store: Transferring purchases from your iOS device or iPod to a computer - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1848 - only purchases from iTunes Store
For transferring other items from an i-device to a computer you will have to use third party commercial software.  See this document by turingtest2: Recovering your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3991
iCloud only stores a copy of your non-iTunes purchases if you subscribe to Match. It still isn't the best way to get your music to a new computer.  That's
(if you use iTunes' default preferences settings):  Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive.  Open iTunes and immediately hold down the option (alt) key (shift on Windows) so you get a prompt to select a library, then guide it to the 'iTunes Library.itl' file in the moved iTunes folder.