New PC with library on external drive--no playlists or ratings?

My previous Win8.1 PC finally died after six years (power supply, I suspect, but it could have been more)--so I picked up a new 8.1 Dell. I had previous been using an external drive as the library for iTunes. Upon firing up iTunes, it did recognize the drive and added the music automatically. Curiously, I had to manually add books, podcasts, and movies. However, all my playlists and song ratings are gone. I could theoretically extract the C drive from my old PC, but I'm wondering if there's some other way to retrieve them. Any ideas? Thanks...

The symptoms you describe correspond to the situation where you have your media on the external drive but the iTunes database (where playlists, ratings, etc. are stored) on the C: drive. If you can access the old drive, look for the C:\Users\username\Music\iTunes folder, and in particular for the iTunes Library.itl file. Then see turingtest2's user tip on Make a split library portable for steps necessary to bring your library into a standardized layout - I'd suggest that you aim to have the complete library on the external drive, in this structure:
where you primarily make use of iTunes' consolidation functions to move files and folders into this structure. Once everything's in place, get a second external drive and use this to create and maintain a backup of your library (much easier with this "well formed" layout since everything you need to backup is in a common folder).

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Linking itunes on new computer with library on external drive

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Thanks for responding Chris. I followed the instructions from Apple and moved the music files over to the external drive. I'm not sure what that left of itunes on the old computer. Now I've downloaded itunes to the new computer and even though the external drive is connected itunes library is empty. I can see that all the music files are actually on the external drive, I just don't know how to get the two linked. I'd like to keep all the music on the external drive to conserve space.

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The symptoms you describe correspond to the situation where you have your media on the external drive but the iTunes database (where playlists, ratings, etc. are stored) on the C: drive. If you can access the old drive, look for the C:\Users\username\Music\iTunes folder, and in particular for the iTunes Library.itl file. Then see turingtest2's user tip on Make a split library portable for steps necessary to bring your library into a standardized layout - I'd suggest that you aim to have the complete library on the external drive, in this structure:
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New pc with media on external drive

I currently have all of my iTunes media on in external USB drive. I have the iTunes application on the C Drive of my PC. I just bought a new PC and I know I need to install iTunes on it. Is there a way to get the new PC to recognize all of the old media that's on the external drive meaning are there some library files that I can copy and paste from the old computer to the new computer or do I have to go into iTunes and add each folder so that it can be seen by the application. This will take some time considering there is 800 GB of media.

The symptoms you describe correspond to the situation where you have your media on the external drive but the iTunes database (where playlists, ratings, etc. are stored) on the C: drive. If you can access the old drive, look for the C:\Users\username\Music\iTunes folder, and in particular for the iTunes Library.itl file. Then see turingtest2's user tip on Make a split library portable for steps necessary to bring your library into a standardized layout - I'd suggest that you aim to have the complete library on the external drive, in this structure:
where you primarily make use of iTunes' consolidation functions to move files and folders into this structure. Once everything's in place, get a second external drive and use this to create and maintain a backup of your library (much easier with this "well formed" layout since everything you need to backup is in a common folder).

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You can use iPhoto Library Manager to copy Events or Albums between libraries and keep the metadata intact (titles, keywords and descriptions - Faces and Places are not yet supported but should be soon).
There are some apps that can create a catalog of thumbnails for viewing with the originals not available. QPict is one that can do what you want. More on the professional side isMedia Expression. It can do that as well as much, much more. I use it as my primary DAM (digital asset management) application and iPhoto for creating books, calendars, etc.

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Ever since upgrading to version 7.6, iTunes freezes for about 30 seconds to a minute, every 2 minutes or so. Essentially, half the time i'm using it, I'm waiting for the "pinwheel of death" to stop spinning. My library resides on an external drive, when I open iTunes without having the drive connected, it doesn't freeze at all. Also, I noticed that when this freezing occurs, the light on my other external drive, and even my 4GB USB-key drive flash repeatedly, as if iTunes is searching for something.
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Two suggestions:
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Hi,
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I've been living the exact same nightmare. Spoke with applecare tech who was unable to help me, got transfered from hardware to software tech, eventually a supervisor acknowledged that he had no idea what was happening and his recommendation, "best I can suggest is that you try google it". Disappointing to say the least, I mean really if 'free' google supersedes the 'paytoplay' applecare, they have a business model issue. (Apple Expert Case 144795352).
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Glenfern wrote:
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http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10330
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Hi
I've just moved my iTunes library from my internal HDD on my Mac to a portable USB powered HDD as it was taking up to much room.
I use TM with another desktop external drive that I plug in. Will TM backup the portable USB drive with iTunes on?
do I need to do anything to do this?
Can I also add other stuff to the portable drive and TM will backup this to?
The portable drive is formatted as Mac OS Journaled
cheers

the loc-man wrote:
Ah ok so everytime I now add something to the portable drive I will have to specifically tell TM not to back it up, as it will do all of drive if not.
correct.
So the older iTunes library that was on my internal iMac HDD, will I dump this now? is it a case of going into a finder window, going to home/user/Music/iTunes and right clicking and delete all previous backups? or should I leave it there?
that's a tricky question. instead of deleting the iTunes folder from your startup disk, you might want to consider it your backup of your precious media files (or perhaps move it to yet another external HD). see http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/20.html.
but, if you really want to, *don't use the finder* ! see http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/12.html.
JGG

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Simply copying the iTunes library to your new drive may not be enough. If, when you added your recordings to the original library, you didn't have the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" checkbox checked in the Preferences->Advanced tab, or you did not do a "Consolidate Library" action before copying the library to the new drive, your actual recordings are probably still on your old drive.
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All the editing work is stored in the *****.aplibrary file.
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Regards
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New PC with library on external drive--no playlists or ratings?

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