New install of iTunes can't find old library

Hello, iTunes experts. I'd greatly appreciate your help.
I put a new hard drive in my computer and did a fresh install of Windows XP Pro and iTunes. My iTunes library has only a few tunes I've purchased, and the rest have been imported from .wav files elsewhere in my computer. Apparently those songs are not actually in iTunes, but just a pointer in the .xml index file.
I would like to connect my old library up to the new instance of iTunes without re-importing everything and re-purchasing what I've bought in the past.
I've followed all the instructions I could find on the web (copy the iTunes Music folder from the old hard drive to the new, change the location in Edit --> Preferences --> Advanced tab, do a Consolidate Library, etc.), but I can't seem to make the new instance of iTunes find the library, either in the new location or even the old one. But I am able to re-import songs successfully, although when I try to play them I get a message that this computer is not authorized to play them.
I'm pretty computer-savvy; this shouldn't be this hard. What trick(s) am I missing?
Windows XP Pro, iTunes 7.6.2.9, The old hard drive is still in the computer as a secondary drive and the old installation of iTunes on it still works (for now).
Thanks very much,
Ted

These sorts of msi-related troubles have gotten more complicated to deal with ever since Microsoft pulled the Windows Installer CleanUp utility from their Download Center on June 25. First we have to find a copy of the utility.
Let's try Googling. (Best not to use Bing, I think.) Look for a working download site for at least version 3.0 of the Windows Installer CleanUp utility. After downloading the utility installer file (msicuu2.exe), scan the file for malware, just in case. (I use the free version of Malwarebytes AntiMalware to do single-file scans for that.)
If the file is clean, to install the utility, doubleclick the msicuu2.exe file you've downloaded.
Now run the utility ("Start > All Programs > Windows Install Clean Up"). In the list of programs that appears in CleanUp, select any iTunes entries and click "Remove".
Quit out of CleanUp, restart the PC and try installing iTunes again. Does the install go through properly this time?
(If you do find a clean download site for the correct version of CleanUp, please don't tell me where it is. Without wishing to sound paranoid (although I grant it does sound paranoid), there is a non-zero chance that posting links to download locations for the utility here at Discussions leads to that download location being shut down.)

Similar Messages

  • I installed the upgrade and now itunes can't find my library and doesn't recognize my devices. Using Windows 7. Any help?

    Help!!! I installed the 10.5 update and now itunes can't find my library or recognize my devices. Running on Windows 7.

    For moving your iTunes library, I recommend this method...
    Assuming you use the iTunes default settings where iTunes copied added items to your iTunes folder and organizes your library (meaning - everything is all self contained in the iTunes folder), then all you have to do is drag & drop your iTunes folder (not just the iTunes Music folder you find inside the iTunes folder) to the external drive and copy the entire thing.
    If you want to test that it worked or would like to actually start using it from that location instead, use these instructions when you start iTunes to point it to the new location...
    How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304447
    If you are just testing, then close iTunes after you verify it works, and restart iTunes again with the same instructions and point it back to your internal drive (original) location.
    Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307074
    Patrick

  • Itunes can't find music library on computer

    Somehow I've moved my music on my computer and itunes cannot find any of it. I can't play anything on the computer, an exclamation point is next to it and the computer tells me itunes cannot find the music. Help! What did I do and how do I fix this? Where should my library be saved? It's currently under itunes folder in my music... is there somewhere else it should be?

    I have the exact same problem and came here looking for an answer. Does anyone have one?!? I am so frustrated. All my music is on my computer and has not been moved yet iTunes suddenly can't find it and I am so mad right now!! When I went to update my iPod with the one new song I bought from iTunes it deleted EVERYTHING except my purchased music and now it can't find anything. WE're talking 500+ songs and I am really upset so I hope someone here has an answer!!

  • Help - moved to new macbook, now iTunes no longer recognising old library

    Hi All,
    Hope you guys can assist me.
    I have recently purchased a new macbook pro and it is replacing my older macbook white.
    I have always kept all my itunes music, both purchased and added from CD on an external 1TB hard drive. This was done becuase the 160GB internal HD got eaten up very quickly.
    I set up the external drive and linked the itunes folder to itunes via preferences many moons ago, probably around itunes 6 or something like that.
    Any who, I have just come to try and add my itunes music to my new macbook pro itunes, and I am not sure how to bring all the music into itunes.
    I have to be honest, I have probably kept my folder stored on my external HD in the wrong configuration for my new itunes to recognise.
    Please, please, please can you help with some advise:-
    1. How should my itunes library (on external HD) be organised, i.e. should all music, TV, Movies etc, be under a specific folder?
         I am wondering if I replicated the file system currently in my macbook onto my external HD and then copied all the music folders into the correct folder, this might clean up my library.
    2. How do I direct itunes towards my library on my external HD so to import all my music, TV etc, into itunes.
    3. Any tips you have on keeping my library in check for the future.
    Thanking you for any advise you can give.
    Matt

    Chris CA wrote:
    I have recently purchased a new macbook pro and it is replacing my older macbook white.
    You should use Migration Assistant to get everything from old computer onto new computer.
    Then everything will work just like old computer..
    2. How do I direct itunes towards my library on my external HD
    (See above before doing this)
    Copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder from old computer to new computer.
    Connect external to new computer and launch iTunes.
    Hi Chris,
    As mentioned in my previous post, all my itunes music etc, are/were on a seperate external HD, so never kept on my original macbook, so I am not sure Migration Assistant would have help me on this, as it is just a plug the external HD into the new macbook.
    Therefore I still have the problem of directing itunes to my library on my external HD so that all music etc, shows up in itunes.
    Matt

  • I'm trying to transfer my iPhoto library to a new mac and I can't find the library on my old mac.

    When I "revel in finder" a photo in my iPhoto app on my old mac, it shows the path: hard drive, user, meghanica, library, iphoto library and so on. BUT when I go to my hard drive and try to follow that path on my laptop, there is no "library" folder to open in meghanica. I have tried to spolight the library folder with no luck. All of my photos that I've looked at in iPhoto show this path. I can't figure out why when I go to my hard drive, it's not there. Any ideas? I'm using updated iPhoto '11 on os x Lion on a macbook pro. Thanks!

    It sounds like the library might have been placed in your Home/Library folder which is invisible.
    NOTE: In Lion and Mountain Lion the Home/Library folder is now invisible. To make it permanently visible enter the following in the Terminal application window: chflags nohidden ~/Library and press the Return key - 10.7: Un-hide the User Library folder.
    For  Mavericks, 10.9,  go to your Home folder and use the View ➙ Show View Options menu to bring the this window:
    When you find the iPhoto library move it to your Pictures folder.
    OT

  • Transferring Coldfusion to a new server - Upgrade license; Can't find old license key HELP!!

         I am currently in the process of porting over my data from another server to a new server. 
    On that server I am running ColdFusionMX7 Standard and want to continue running it on the new one. 
    Coldfusion is currently loaded on the new server through a trial edition but when I try and enter the Serial Number I see on the Coldfusion on the server I am currently operating, it prompts me that "You have entered an upgrade license key (XXXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX), which requires you to enter the license key of your previous version of ColdFusion."
    Do you have any advice on this?  Is there any way to find that old license on the old server?
    Thanks!

    Contact support by web chat.
    Mylenium

  • Restoring data on new drive, time machine can't find old drive because it backed up my old clone drive instead. now what?

    My hard drive failed on MB Pro 2008. i was able to start up using a super duper bootable clone on an iomega external drive (the clone was from 6 months ago unfortunately). once the computer started up, it saw the failed drive and i was able to retrieve some new data created since my last time machine backup 10 days ago. i then plugged in another external drive with my time machine backup on it and tried  to backup the failed harddrive once more before going to buy a new HD and getting rid of the failed one. INSTEAD  of backing up the real HD, time machine backed up the clone drive which is 6 months old. now that i have a new HD and OS 10.6.3, when i try to restore data from the last time machine backup of the real HD (12/27/12), the only option i'm getting is from the backup of the CLONE drive which is 6 months older. i know the info is there but the transfer data option isn't seeing that drive. what do i do???

    If I understand you correctly, you have a Clone of your original internal HDD and a Time Machine HDD that backed up the Clone.  If it backed up the Clone HDD and deleted the prior backups, then your data is gone.  If it backed up the Clone for only the changes made since the Clone was created, the data should be there.
    Open Time Machine and see what actually is there.  If you cannot open it,  Click on the Time Machine icon on your desktop.  It will give you a display showing one folder (Backups.backupdp).  Open that folder and it will show another single folder.  Open that one and it should display folders that are dated for each day/week that backups have been made.
    If there are 'old' folders in there, you can access the data by opening then up as the image below indicates:
    It may be tedious, but it is better than not having the data.
    Ciao.

  • Got new nano now itunes does not find old nano

    Used two 1st gen. nano's fine with itunes. Then purchased 2nd gen. nano and that works with itunes but now the two 1st gen. nano's do not appear on itunes and screen freezes. When i unplug, itunes starts operating ok again. Can you help?
    AMD Athlon 1.8   Windows XP  

    More information. I started iTunes today and attached my iPod shuffle (old style shuffle). iTunes did not eat up the processor and worked fine.

  • I moved my music to new computer but itunes can't find

    I think I put everything in the correct folder, but I start itunes and it shows no music in the Music Library

    You need to open your preferences file in iTunes and click on advance then select the location of where you put the folder.  http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527

  • My iPhoto library lives on an external hard drive. iTunes can't find the library, so I can't sync photos to my iPhone. Why?

    Like I said. . .
    I recently migrated from an old MacBook to a new MacBook Air. I decided that since I have many tens of thousands of photos, I would keep them all on an external hard drive in the dedicated "iPhoto Library" (which I was very careful to migrate intact then move to the EHD). Now, when I go to the "Photos" tab in iTunes, all I get is a thinking wheel and no interface with which to choose which photos I want to sync to my iPhone (5s).
    Any thoughts or advice would be greatly welcome.
    Thanks!

    Hello Sandra,
    The article linked below details how to go about restoring items from Time Machine in Snow Leopard.
    Mac OS X 10.6: Recovering items using Time Machine and Spotlight
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH6379
    Sincerely,
    Allen

  • ITunes can't find Aperture Library for iPad sync

    I just upgraded from iPhoto '11 to Aperture 3. When trying to sync my iPad, and telling iTunes to now sync photos from Aperture, I get the following message:
    "Your Aperture Library could not be found. Open the preferences window in Aperture and enable the preference to share previews with other applications."
    All well and good, but when I go to the preference pane in Aperture, I do not see the referenced option. Under the "Previews" tab (Aperture > Preferences > Previews) I see the options for "Share previews with iLife and iWork" (Always/When quitting Aperture/Never)--is that the preference indication they mean? None of those options results in iTunes being able to see my Aperture library.
    Oddly, Aperture can see and import photos on my iPad that are not already in my Library, but claims it cannot send photos in the other direction because the library can't be seen. Frustrating

    This is a repost from another thread dealing with what I think is the same issue. It is what ended up working for me:
    I have gone through a lot of steps and they all seem to have inched me closer to resolving this issue. My original post may have been cluttered so I'll list the steps I took here. The final step, though very time consuming seems to have corrected most of the problems, though I think I now need to get Aperture to generate new previews for all of my images at a size that the iPad likes (1920x1920).
    1. Set Aperture's preference to Always share with iLife applications
    2. Set Aperture's preference to generate previews at 1920x1920 or better
    3. Repair Permissions via the Aperture Library First Aid function described here (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3805). You may want to do one of the more serious Library repairs just to get things organized with the file structure system but "Repair Permissions" seems to have been all I need to do.
    4. Go to the top of your image hierarchy and reprocess all of the images with the newest Aperture RAW convertor by control-clicking on Photos and selecting "Reprocess Masters"(if you shoot RAW... and you should shoot RAW). It gives you several options, I chose to preserve all of my edits which will add additional time to the process but is worth it so you don't have to re-edit everything. I selected "All Photos" and "Reprocess Existing Images"
    If you have a large library (1TB or more) you are now two days or so into this process.
    5. Back up your Vault to save these changes
    6. Generate new previews since you changed the size in which Aperture saved the JPEGs it uses to export to Aperture. I believe this is done from the top of the image hierarchy as well by holding down the option key when you right-click on the whole library. But, I am not at this stage yet so I can't be sure about that.

  • New Version of iTunes can't "locate" a lot of my music

    Almost 1/4 of my music is now unplayable because the new version of itunes can't find it. Anyone know how to remedy this?
    inspiron 8200   Windows XP   Dell

    See
    iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Windows
    - I would start with
    Removing and Reinstalling iTunes, QuickTime, and other software components for Windows XP
    or                     
    Removing and reinstalling iTunes and other software components for Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8
    However, after your remove the Apple software components also remove the iCloud Control Panel via Windows Programs and Features app in the Window Control Panel. Then reinstall all the Apple software components
    - Then do the other actions of:
    iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Windows
    paying special attention to item #5
    - New cable and different USB port
    - Run this and see if the results help with determine the cause
    iTunes for Windows: Device Sync Tests
    Also see:
    iPod not recognised by windows iTunes
    Troubleshooting issues with iTunes for Windows updates
    - Try on another computer to help determine if computer or iPod problem
    Note that you can only sync with one computer/iTunes library. To change syncing computer's:
    Syncing to a "New" Computer or replacing a "crashed" Hard Drive: Apple Support Communities

  • I have windows 7 64 bit but the new itunes will not install because it can't find itunes64.msi.  I have searxhed evertwhere on my pc. In addition, I can't uninstall the itunes and reinstall for the same reason.

    I have windows 7 64 bit but the new itunes will not install because it can't find itunes64.msi.  I have searched evertwhere on my pc. In addition, I can't uninstall the itunes and reinstall for the same reason. I can't upgrade for my icloud account.

    Try the following steps:
    1. Go to Microsoft website to fix install and Unistall problems. Click "Run now" from Fix it to remove all iTunes & related installer files:
    http://support.microsoft.com/mats/Program_Install_and_Uninstall
    Be aware that Windows Installer CleanUp Utility will not remove the actual program from your computer. However, it will remove the installation files so that you can start the installation, upgrade, or uninstall over.
    2. You should remove all instances of iTunes and the rest of the components listed below:
    it may be necessary to remove all traces of iTunes, QuickTime, and related software components from your computer before reinstalling iTunes.
    Use the Control Panel to uninstall iTunes and related software components in the following order:
    iTunes
    QuickTime
    Apple Software Update
    Apple Mobile Device Support
    Bonjour
    Apple Application Support (iTunes 9 or later)
    Follow the instructions from Apple article listed here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1923 to remove all components
    3. Reboot your computer. Next, download iTunes from here:http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/ and install from scratch

  • Hard drive packed up, but had Time Machine backup. I installed new sad and upgraded to Mountain Lion., but I can't find iPhoto library and photos or iTunes songs? Is there an answer to this?  Graham

    Hard drive packed up, but had Time Machine backup. I installed new ssd and upgraded to Mountain Lion, but I can't find iPhoto library and photos or iTunes songs? Is there an answer to this?  A backup run did not install either photos or songs. Graham

    Thanks so much but none of that helped.  It was driving me crazy because it would back up another external drive.  I just changed the name of the drive from iPhoto/iTunes Library to Media Libraries and IT WORKED!! I guess for some reason it didn't like the drive being called iPhoto or iTunes ???? I don't understand but I have tried so many solutions and exchanging things out but the name change did it????!!!
    Thank you for your help and replying to this.  Guess I made my own issue!

  • How do I sync my old library with a new install of iTunes on a seperate drive?

    I just recently installed an SSD on my PC and I want to run iTunes off of the SSD. My library currently resides on my old HDD witch also has the most current version of iTunes on as well. How can I sync the library that resides on my old HDD to the new install of iTunes on my SSD?

    can't if you do not have access to the old library (the usual workaround is to backup the old library and import it to the new itunes)
    for important data...
    sync your existing contacts with icloud, your text messages will not be disrupted, music will sync with whatever music you have on your new itunes, photos shoud still be in the camera roll (I would sync them to photostream before you sync, just in case).   Any photos on your phone that are not in camera roll or photostream... if you lost those pictures with the computer crash I would take screen shots (lock button + home button at the same time) of each photo so they show up in the camera roll.  App data may or may not be lost.  In my experience, it depends on the app.  Some of the apps recognize your apple ID and sync data over the internet with servers, some do not.  I would take note of important data (such as passwords in a password keeper if you have such an app) just in case if you lose that data.

Maybe you are looking for