Need help opening my library with an external hard drive

I transferred my iTunes library to an external hard drive to open space on my computer, following directions for consolidating and backing up that were given on iTunes. . I am trying to open it on another laptop with iTunes installed to make sure the transferred library works before I delete the original library on my computer.
After connecting the EHD to the laptop, I hold down the shift key and press "choose library" and open the library from the EHD. This is where things get screwy.
Instead of the library opening in iTunes, I get more folders. One for album artwork, another for iTunes media, and another for previous iTunes libraries. When I open the iTunes media folder I get more folders: for audiobooks, books, games, movies, etc.
What did I do wrong?

You're looking to choose a file called iTunes Library.itl in the iTunes folder on the external drive.
tt2

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I downloaded the iPhoto update and now it won't open the library on my external hard drive telling me it is locked (which it isn't) what do i do?

i downloaded the iPhoto update and now it won't open the library on my external hard drive telling me it is locked (which it isn't) what do i do?

What version of iPhoto?
What format is the disk?

Help! Photos Library copied to external hard drive, but after preparing the library I can NOT see any pictures.

I am having a tough time and searched, but have not found an answer that works. Last night I copied my iPhoto Library to an external hard drive because when I initially attempted to set up Photos, I got an error that said I needed 88 GB of space for the transfer. I got the iPhoto Library onto the hard drive and reopened the app and it prepared the library. It was talking forever, so I went to bed. This morning, I have this screen...
There are NO pictures in the actual app. I went to the external hard drive and see that the Photos Library exists...
I have tried to hold command and option and restart Photos and I did get a prompt that it was repairing; however, this was unsuccessful. Please help! I know the photos are there because when I show package contents, I see them all in my Masters/Old Masters folders.
Thank you!

Agree with baltwo, though even if you have saved the install app I wouldn't use it unless its been used to install a known good copy of the OS already.
In your case, that probably means start fresh:
Restart the computer, holding down 'command' and 'r'. When the recovery disk window shows, choose 'Reinstall Mac OS X'.

How can I consolidate my music library with an external hard drive?

I have moved my entire music library onto an external hard drive. However, when I want to copy a new CD at work, I often copy the music onto my laptop then have to manually transfer it to the external hard drive at home.
I thought that "consolidate" library would do this automatically for me. The problem is when I disconnect the external, the next time I open iTunes it tells me "The folder containing the iTunes Library cannot be found and is required. Please choose or create a new iTunes Library." So I choose the iTunes library that resides on my laptop in the Music folder. When I go back to using my external music folder and try to consolidate my library nothing happens. I would like to use the "consolidate library" command to copy the music from my laptop to my external hard drive. Please help!

Drag it to the internal drive.
If it contains the iTunes database files, launch iTunes with the Shift key held down, click on Choose Library, and navigate to it.
If it doesn't, drag it from there into the open iTunes application window.
(108123)

Need help sorting /consolidating music. 3 external hard drives 25000+ songs

i have 3 external hard drives 1 terabite each. over 2000 complete albums. i may have 20 different folders or files of music spread over each drive. how do i clean up the music. example (folder a)has 700 albums and 1000 single songs by various artists, including 5 single copies of the song back in black by ac/dc. this folder includes 9 full ac/dc albums. (folder b) has 1500 albums and 2000 singles and has 14 ac/dc albums when i run (folder a) thru itunes and it completes and all music data shows. i then will run (folder b) thru i tunes, but i do not want 9 ac/dc back in black singles off the album back in black, nor do i want 2 complete back in black albums, 2 highway to **** albums and so forth, i want itunes to only install the 5 albums that are not in (folder a). please help.

Welcome to the Apple discussions.
You may want to consider posting this question in the iTunes discussion area at http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=149
It sounds like you don't currently back up your hard drive, and if your iTunes library is that important to you, you should figure out how to back it up now. Easiest way is to buy an external drive larger than your existing internal hard drive, get a program like SuperDuper, which is what I use, and copy your drive to the external backup. Then you can point iTunes to it to use the library there. SuperDuper can be found at http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
I prefer an external hard drive with a firewire connection, so I can boot from it if need be (a Powerbook can't boot from a USB device). If you do get an external hard drive with only a USB connection, then it would be good for it to have it's own power supply since some drives can't get enough power from the Powerbook USB to start or work properly.

Help storing itunes library on an external hard drive

Hi,
I have put all my music on an external hard drive (Lacie) and deleted it from my Mac Book Pro. I have gone into preferences - Advanced in the itunes menu and changed the location of my itunes music folder to my external hard drive. Then when I go to click on a song in itunes it comes up with a message saying "the song ... Could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?".
The file is definitely on my eternal drive because I have checked many times, and its in the folder that I have specified when I go into the itunes - preferences - advanced pane.
Do you know why this would be happening? I have deleted all the music from my computer and it is only on my hard drive now.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, I have spent hours trying to figure this out!

Well that will certainly teach you not to delete your original before you CHECK your new location copy, right?
So, here is the deal. Set the location back to the way it was before you made the move. Close iTunes. Now copy all your stuff back from the external back to the internal the way it was before. Now before you do anything else, open iTunes and CHECK (!!!!!!) that they now play ok back in their original place. Do they?
If they do, now close iTunes and copy the entire "iTunes" folder (not just the iTunes Music folder found inside it) to the external hard drive. Now use these instructions to open the library from this new location...
How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304447
Actually now that I think about it, you might be able to get away with just moving the database file to the external then using the above instructions. In other words, say you copied the "iTunes Music" over originally. On the external create an "iTunes" folder. Drag and drop the "iTunes Music" into that folder. From your internal drive, in the iTunes folder, drag and drop any other files that are not yet on the external drive like the two database files ("iTunes Library" (database file), iTunes Music Library.xml, Album Artwork folder, etc.). Once all over on the external so you have basically recreated your internal folder on the external, NOW try the instructions above to open the library from that location.
Patrick

Need help setting up Macbook Pro and external hard drive(s)

I apologize for the vague title but I was limited to so many characters.
Here's my situation (sorry for being verbose, I just want to be thorough)
Right now I have a Macbook Pro and a 500 GB external hard drive (Western Digital using USB 2.0 connection). I've outgrown the external hard drive and am ready to upgrade my external memory.
Here's my issues right now:
My iTunes library and music reside on the external hard drive. Using iTunes is painfully, I mean brutally, slow for some reason. For example: if I were to just change the genre of an average album, it takes upwards of 4 or 5 minutes to change the data. Compared to the POS Dell computer I used to run iTunes with (using the same external hard drive), the same task would take 5 seconds at the most. Likewise, if I try to watch a video that resides on that external hard drive right now, it skips and eventually stops because (presumably) the data is transferring extremely slowly. I have no idea, and haven't gotten any real answers, as to why this is happening with the Macbook and/or if using a Firewire connection would improve the speed.
Taking that into consideration, here's what I would like to do (and ask). I see myself having one 1T external hard drive for all my music and one 1T external hard drive for all my movies and videos. Ideally I would like to be able to access these two hard drives wirelessly with my Macbook and have it transfer the data very quickly - as it should IMO. Certainly a lot faster than it is now.
I would love to just be able to hook my Macbook up to my main stereo and run iTunes through it without having to lug around and messily connect the external hard drive which contains all the music. As well as being able to hook my Macbook up to the stereo and LCD monitor and be able to watch a video, again without the hassle of having to connect the external hard drive - which as I said prior, appears to transfer the data way too slowly anyway.
Any suggestions on what external hard drives I should get and any other hardware/software I need to run them wirelessly would be gratefully welcomed.
Thanks in advance (and I apologize for the long winded post)
MM

Obviously, FireWire is a fast connection, but for changing metadata, USB is plenty fast. Why it takes so long is anyones guess. Is it a USB 2.0 drive? Using external drives can be tricky. My father uses them for his gigantic library of almost 80,000 songs. When you have it setup properly, it works fine, but if you say forgot to have the external drive mounted when you launch iTunes, iTunes defaults the library back to your Music folder, then when you start importing, it puts in on the internal drive, then you have to go back and reset it, etc. Problem, with iTunes alone, you can only set one library, so if you want to use two drives, you will have to have one set at any given time.
So you could set the music one first, add to the library, then set it for movies, then add those to the library. Then keep the library set to the one you use most frequently, so you don't have to always switch. Once you import all media, and iTunes "knows" where to find the files, you can play them with no problems with two drives.
For wireless, you have a couple choices. If you have two Macs, you could keep one connected to the two drives, then with the other computer, just connect to the network and share the iTunes library so your other computer has access. If you want the music stored on a drive accessible wireless, you'll probably have to look to NAS, or some form of wireless storage. If you do that, their may even be a better third party software solution other than iTunes for managing multiple libraries.
This is something iTunes really needs. As libraries grow, one drive just isn't enough often.
Bryan

Need help - Moving my Itunes to an external hard drive

Help! Help! Help! Am tearing my hair out here!
I recently got my first Ipod so please excuse if I'm being thick here! Basically, I'm about two thirds of the way downloading my not insignificant CD collection onto my Ipod, which I'm doing via Itunes. The C drive on my laptop is now full to bursting and I don't even have enough space left for my anti virus (big problem!). Therefore, I am wanting to transfer my itunes to an external hard drive. First, I followed the instructions on this site for Backing up itunes library by copying to a external hard drive.........
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751?viewlocale=en_US
All that succeeding in doing was mirroring whatever I did on the C:/ drive on the E:/ drive i.e. if I deleted itunes from the C:/ drive it disappeared from the E:/ drive.
Next, I followed these instructions for Moving the itunes media folder to the external drive.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
This too didn't help as the media folder is not the problem, its the library as its 735kb! Am I right in thinking there's no way of moving the library to the external drive whilst wiping it from the C;/ drive? I need to get these darn files off my laptop and to use my external drive for my itunes. Alternatively, if I were to wipe the files to free up the space (as they are backed up on the hard drive) is there a way of syncing so that it simply adds new stuff to the existing music on my ipod not replacing it..
Hope I'm making sense and that someone can help.

First, I followed the instructions on this site for Backing up itunes library by copying to a external hard drive.........
That's what it does. It makes a backup copy of the iTunes folder. iTunes will not use that folder or do anything to that folder.
All that succeeding in doing was mirroring whatever I did on the C:/ drive on the E:/ drive i.e. if I deleted itunes from the C:/ drive it disappeared from the E:/ drive.
Do you mean after you followed the instructions and copied \Music\iTunes folder to the external drive and then deleted something from iTunes, it deleted it from the external drive also?
As above, iTunes will not use or do anything to that folder.
Next, I followed these instructions for Moving the itunes media folder to the external drive.
Why? You already copied the entire iTunes folder (including th emedia folder) to the external drive.
Hold Shift and launch iTunes.
Select *Choose library* and select the _iTunes library.itl_ file in the iTunes folder on the external.
This too didn't help as the media folder is not the problem, its the library as its 735kb!
What do you mean "the library"?
735kB is small for the iTunes library.itl file and a single file in iTunes is larger than that.
Am I right in thinking there's no way of moving the library to the external drive whilst wiping it from the C;/ drive?
Yes. Follow my intruction above (Choose library) and iTunes will use the iTunes folder on the external.
You can then delete \Music\iTunes on the C: drive.

Do I really need to put my library on an external hard drive? Or is still good to leave it on my fusion drive on new iMac?

Previous conventional wisdom seemed to say that it was best to locate your FCP media on an external thunderbolt drive while keeping FCP app on your internal system drive.
I have a new top end iMac with 3tb fusion drive, is it okay to keep the new FCP 10.1 media library on internal drive? If not, why not?
Thank you

Ever since I created my DIY Fusion Drive in my Mac Pro, I have moved my libraries on to it because it is still less then half full.
In the past I had them all spread arcoss internal drives in my Mac Pro in an effort to improve performance.
To me it appear the DIY Fusion Drive is able to do a better job then using three internal drive could do.
Allan

How do I back up my Itunes Library with a external hard drive

and if i do periodical backups of the whole system am i saving the itunes library?

That is a great question. I am wondering the same thing

Help! I need to open my iTunes library from my external hard drive

Hey everybody
I recently moved my iTunes library to an external hard drive. It worked great for a while; whenever I opened iTunes I made sure my hard drive was plugged in. Since then, I've used iTunes without plugging the hard drive in to sync my iPhone contacts, so there is also a local iTunes library without any files. My question: how do I tell iTunes to open the library on my external hard drive again? The hard drive is plugged in but iTunes won't open the library on the hard drive. I think there is some key I have to hold down while opening iTunes (?) it's not ctrl or option. Help! Thanks
Ryan

Yep. You're right. My problem was that I wasn't holding the option key down long enough... wow, epic fail... but thanks! I now have my music back!

I have tried transferring my iphoto library to my external hard drive and it's not working.

I have a Macbook Pro. I have recently gotten into photography and to save space on my internal hard drive, I bought an external hard drive to keep all of my photos on. It's a Toshiba with 1 TB of memory. I have searched and searched on how to transfer my iphoto library to it and I'm getting the same answer. I open two finder windows, one with pictures open, the other with the external hard drive open. I have tried to drag the iphoto library icon to the second window to the external hard drive and instead of it staying there and loading everything it gives me the circle with a diagonal line through it and floats back up to the pictures finder window. I'm not sure what the problem is, but I really need help!

you need to make sure the drive you are moving the iphoto library to is formatted in the mac OS extended journaled format
you can view and/or change this in the disk utility which is found in the utilities folder in applications within finder.
on the left side select the external HD and then click on the erase tab it will show you the format it's currnetly in, if it's not mac OS extended journaled select that from the drop down and then hit the button that says erase.
after the erase is complete try the article i gave you again to move the location of the lbrary and it should work.
good luck

Transferring iTunes Library to an external hard drive - help needed

I recently moved my iTunes library (aka all of my 32 GB of music) onto an external hard drive so as to save space on my laptop, but I messed up somehow and now I can't add songs to my iPhone. The chain of events went something like this:
1. I copied my iTunes library onto my external hard drive.
2. I changed my iTunes library location (in the itunes settings) to it's new spot on the external.
3. I deleted the songs off my laptop.
This worked fine at first, but then I think I opened iTunes with my external NOT connected and I got a blank library. I plugged in my external but my itunes was still blank. Then I decided I'll just add everything back to my itunes library. I did that, but I lost all my playlists and whatnot, but I didn't really care - all my music was there.
Now I just tried to add new music to my iPhone and it won't let me. When I try to turn manual music management it gives me an error saying "this iPhone is synced with another itunes library".
Is there some way I can retrieve my original itunes library from before I did all this stuff? Help much appreciated.

Quick answer 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 choose a library, then select the copied iTunes folder.
If this is to a new computer and you put the copied iTunes folder in the default location of Macintosh HD > Users > *User Name* > Music then you don't even need to start with the option key held down, iTunes will automatically look for it there. (Make sure there isn't anything already in the iTunes folder there that you want to keep since you will be replacing it with the one you are moving.)

Issues with using my iPhoto library on my external hard drive. Very slow to open and pictures disappear in thumbnail view.

I have recently transferred my iPhoto Library to my external hard drive (WD MyBook Live) and have some questions. Since I have done this and used the "alt + option" to select it as my default library I have been having some issues. When using the library on the external drive as my default drive it takes a very long time to load compared to when it was on my macbook's hard drive. Is this normal? Also, once it does load the thumbnails are only viewable when scrolling quickly through the photos and they are very blurry. However, if I were to select one randomly (because of this problem I have no way of knowing which one I'm selecting) it brings it up in the edit view and it is a crystal clear picture.
Is there a way to fix these issues? I'd love to be able to use the iPhoto Library off the external drive to free up space on my macbook but if it isn't going to work as streamlined as it would on my macbook hard drive. I have not yet deleted the original iPhoto Library from my macbook because I did not want to do so until I knew the new iPhoto library on the external drive was working properly. Does this make a difference?
Please help!

The problem lies with occasional dropouts that can corrupt the library's database files if they are being written to as the time of dropout. It's the nature of wireless networks. If you have a very strong signal throughout and are willing to take a chance then go for it.
But as for the speed, it must be iPhoto 11 and it's complexity causing the slowness. I had tried using a library on an EHD connected to my iMac from my laptop wirelessly with iPhoto 7 or 8 and it was pretty fast. I think it was 7 before faces and places came into being.
Send a feature request to Apple via http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphoto.html to improve wireless performance, etc.
OT

Opening iTunes 10 Library on an External Hard Drive from iTunes 9.2.1

Hi All,
I backed up my iTunes library on an external Hard Drive using;
'Machine A'- Powerbook, PowerPC, 1.25 GHz
OS - Leopard
iTunes - 10.1
This Aluminum G4 is undergoing repairs so I am now using an older Powerbook which works fine.
Configuration on this is
'Machine B'- Powerbook, PowerPC, 400 GHz
OS - Tiger / 10.4.11
iTunes - 9.2.1
My question is,
'Is there any way for me to run iTunes 9.2.1 using the 'Music Library' from the external Hard Drive'
and not loose any metadata (all the Tags/Ratings/Comments/Art Work)
that I have painstakingly undertaken for the last 8 to 9 years.
Tried opening iTunes with the <option> key & pointing to the library but got the error:
"The file iTunes Library cannot be read because it was created by a newer version of iTunes"
It is likely that I will be using Machine B for a few months,
so I really hope you experts out there can help me with a nice and easy solution.
Cheers,
Matt.

The iTunes application should be installed on the system drive. You may need to repair iTunes to fix that error regarding a missing .exe.
To organize your library properly see Make a split library portable.
If you don't have a working version of the library that can be transformed into a portable shape I have tools and techniques that can repair the broken links.
tt2

Need help opening my library with an external hard drive

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