Problems Downloading iTunes Library From Portable Hard Drive

Why does it take so long to transfer iTunes songs from a portable hard drive?
Here are my stats:
Machine Name: iMac
Machine Model: PowerMac4,2
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (2.1)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 800 MHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 100 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.4.1f1
I'm downloading a 9,000 song library from the portable hard drive to an empty iTunes program. I highlighted all of the song files (Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, etc.) It took at least an hour for all of the songs to "process". Then my computer told me there is not enough room to store them all. I understand this because the list of songs I want to import is 34 gig. What I don't understand is why it has taken since midnight last night (it is now 14 1/2 hours later) and song no.6,450 of 6,800 is loading. Does it normally take this long for such a large amount of songs to transfer. Will there be any way that I can transfer the other 2,200 songs after this is done?
I also want to know if anyone knows if it makes sense for me partition the iTunes library somehow so it won't slow the computer down by being such a large file.
iMAC 1500 Mac OS X (10.4.10)
iMAC 1500 Mac OS X (10.4)
iMAC 1500 Mac OS X (10.4)
iMAC 1500 Mac OS X (10.4)

I would think you could access them directly from that drive, but I am not sure if the USB 1.1 bus speed will cause problems or not like stuttering, long pauses, aborts in the middle of songs, etc. You can certain give it a try and let us know if it works ok that way.
Also keep in mind that USB is a shared bus so it may work if the USB bus is doing nothing more than accessing the drive and your keyboard and mouse. If you start scanning in something from a USB scanner, printing to a USB printer, accessing a USB to Wifi device, etc. then you might see more issues with playback as iTunes has to share the USB connection with other things.
Patrick

Similar Messages

I have just transferred my iTunes library from a hard drive previously connected to a windows laptop to a MacBook Pro and now all my options for editing info are greyed out. I have seen the answers if still using windows but could find a similar situation

I have just transferred my iTunes library from a hard drive previously connected to a windows laptop to a MacBook Pro and now all my options for editing info are greyed out. I have seen the answers if still using windows but could find a similar situation to this one.

Eels290776 wrote:
if my external hard drive is not connected to either of my machines, and I download something onto my iMac and then something different onto my Macbook, where are my machines going to be storing the new downloaded media
when the drive is not connected, +iTunes media folder location+ will default back to <MacintoshHD>/users/<yourname>/music/iTunes/iTunes music (or media)
and when I next connect the external hard drive how will I easily get the newly downloaded media onto the external HD
you'd have to point +iTunes media folder location+ back to the external via preferences > advanced > iTunes media folder location, then file > library, organize library > consolidate files
and essentially, to have it easily readable on both machines?
in that case it might be best to copy the entire iTunes folder to the external. then, on each machine, launch iTunes while pressing option on your keyboard. when prompted, click on +choose library+ and navigate to the iTunes folder on the external.
note only one iTunes can access the iTunes library @ a time !
also, make sure the external is mounted on either machine before launching iTunes.
JGG

Hi, I had to re install my itunes library from a hard drive to my new laptop. Now I cant sync my iphone because itunes thinks all songs are new and basically doubling all albums. Should i restore iphone or is there a better way?

hi, i had to re install my itunes library from a hard drive to my new laptop. Now itunes thinks i am trying to add new albums and saying there isnt enoug space. should i restore or is there a better way.

Have you tried exporting a 10 second section of the footage to see if the issue shows up once the seqeunce is actually exported from the timeline. I edit on CS5 with windows 7 pro at work quite often and have no issues so I assure you that isn't the issue. I also edit with AVCHD footage when at home and work quite freqeuntly as well so I'm positive that isn't the issue. It sounds like a GPU driver has been corrupted in the way it interacts with premiere pro. What type of GPU do you have? If it supports MPE's GPU acceleration have you tried turning it off and seeing if that makes any difference?
Anyways though try to export a 10 second test section of your timeline to see if when the clip is exported from premiere it will play normally in windows media player or vlc or w/e media player you want to use. If it exports fine then you can almost be positive it's a corrupted video card driver. If that's the case I'd re-install your GPU's driver and also check your gpu makers website to see if they have a updated driver avaiable.

Backup and restoring itunes library from external hard drive?

is there a way to backup and restore my itunes library to external hard drive and not through the internal itunes backup utility cos i have over 20gbs of music and i want to keep my album art and renamed songs etc. because i will be reformating my pc and dont want to go through painful task of manually adding stuff again.

Try this...
*Fast backup for iTunes library (Windows Only)*
Grab SyncToy 2.0, a free tool from MS. Use it to create a backup copy of your iTunes library & any other media folders onto another hard drive or network share. After making the initial backup copy use SyncToy to periodically synchronise the backup copy with your library and only the changed files will be copied saving lots of time.
When the time comes to reformat your PC, do a final sync, then open iTunes & deauthorise the PC, reformat & rebuild Windows, copy the backup folders back to the same location as they were previously, install iTunes and it should all work perfectly.
tt2

Migrating iTunes library from external hard drive to new laptop

Hi there, I am wondering if anyone can help me please? I am a complete newbie to this forum thing, I am just getting into this cosmic sharing world but find myself utterly frustrated with iTunes and my new laptop - with little help on the Support pages, so i am venturing into the unkown and seeking help from anyone out there.........slightly scary for me, this really is my first post on a forum - so be gentle with me :0)
On my old steam driven laptop I had to move my iTunes library to an external hard drive, my 250MB hard drive just wasn't enough (I know pathetic wasn't it). All ok there and I have been using it no problem. I have now upgraded (finally!!) to a new wonderful laptop (with webcam and all sorts!)but I am at the end of my tether trying to get my iTunes library from my external hard drive to appear in the Library on the laptop. boo hoo.
I have tried changing the file location in the Advance section of preferences, i have tried choosing the library after holding down the shift key on start up (you see not a complete numpty). They all appear to work as i don't get any error messages, but the songs just don't appear in the library. Am i being a complete numb nuts here? what am i missing?
If anyone can help i would be really grateful as this is spoiling the euphoric feeling i have of my lovely new laptop!
cheers Latte

tonybassplayer wrote:
Thank Chris I have just done that. How do I now get them in to Itunes ?
If you simply copy the iTUnes folder to /Music/ and launch iTUnes, everythign will be there. No need to import anything.
This will work the same with iPhoto.
Simply copy the Photo library to /Pictures/ folder and launch iPhoto.

Cannot transfer iTunes library from old hard drive. Pls help.

My old laptop is broken, so I purchased a "rocketfish" housing so I can extract the info from the hard drive through USB.
The problem is I cannot figure out how to merge my library from the old laptop hard drive to the one on my PC. The iTunes file is there, and I've tried to drag and drop it into the file on my "C" drive, but it still dosen't show up in iTunes.
Please help if you can.

OK what you can do is use the File -> Add to library... command and then point to the music folder on the rocketfish drive (or you can just drag and drop the folders from the external onto your iTunes library window). This will add them, but not playcounts, playlists, ratings, etc. They will come in as new.
The other thing is, if your iTunes preferences are set to copy added files to the iTunes folder, then when you add them, they will be copied from the external to your internal drive. So you need enough room to hold all the files. Alternatively, you can uncheck that option and have them added to the library but they will remain on the external drive. But to play the files you need to have the drive connected and powered up.
Patrick

How to restore ITunes Library from Backup hard drive?

My computer crashed. I restored it -- but ITunes was wiped clean. I have all my music files and ITunes Library backed up on an external hard drive. How do I get the library from the external drive back to the computer with playlists, artwork and all intact? I guess it is more complex than just dragging the file labled library into ITunes becuase the computer won't let me do that. When I go to the original songs they are all individually in folders accorging to the artist and album -- that will take days to copy each album 1 by 1 -- I have 3,700 songs.

What you first need to do is Place the music it the Location they was in before you restored. If you had songs on the C drive in My Music folder, place them there. If iTunes was reading the music from the external, not much you have to do sincve there already there.
Now with the Library file you have to make iTUnes take the file and recreate it, this is explained here http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93313

Moving my iTunes library from old hard drive to new laptop

I apologize if this has been discussed before, but, just today I punched my laptop screen and shattered it (the laptop has been asking for it lately, it's been acting up and I was planning on buying a new one anyhow). I removed the hard drive and it's perfectly fine, no damage. I bought a new laptop a few hours after breaking the old one and I was wondering how, if possible, I can move my iTunes library from my old hard drive to my new laptop. I read about a hard drive case that comes with a USB cable and one of those things that plugs into my hard drive that I can then plug into my new laptop and my old hard drive will show up.
Sorry, it was a bit of a mouthful. Anything anyone can suggest is greatly appreciated.

tonybassplayer wrote:
Thank Chris I have just done that. How do I now get them in to Itunes ?
If you simply copy the iTUnes folder to /Music/ and launch iTUnes, everythign will be there. No need to import anything.
This will work the same with iPhoto.
Simply copy the Photo library to /Pictures/ folder and launch iPhoto.

Moving itunes library from old hard drive to new laptop

I need to move my itunes library from my old hard drive from my now defunct laptop to my new one
Can someone please advise how to go about this so I avoid making mistakes that I have with iphoto etc when doing the same
Many thanks
tony

tonybassplayer wrote:
Thank Chris I have just done that. How do I now get them in to Itunes ?
If you simply copy the iTUnes folder to /Music/ and launch iTUnes, everythign will be there. No need to import anything.
This will work the same with iPhoto.
Simply copy the Photo library to /Pictures/ folder and launch iPhoto.

Need to move iTunes library from external hard drive to Mac desktop.

I moved my iTunes library from my Mac desktop to an external hard drive. I needed to do this so the Apple Store could do maintenance work on my computer and I didn't want to lose my files. How do I move the iTunes library back to my Mac desktop?

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 select a library, then guide it to the 'iTunes Library.itl' file in the moved iTunes folder.
If 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.)

Can't import entire iTunes library from external hard drive

I recently had to reset my IBM ThinkPad T40 (Windows XP) to factory settings. Of course, I backuped up my iTunes library on an external hard drive, and there didn't seem to be any problems doing so. (I've had to do the same thing before) But I can't re-import the entire library now! It only imports about a thousand songs (I had about 5,000), and I get an error message saying "The file iTunes Library.itl~ cannot be imported becuase it does not appear to be a valid exported file.") I also tried to import a previous back-up (stored in a different folder, and it wouldn't import all of those files, either -- no more than in the more recent backup files) either. I've tried re-downloading the iTunes software several times. Help!!!!
Thanks!!!
PS: Is there a way to sync my iPod to import songs from that BACK into itunes?
IBM ThinkPad T40 Windows XP

This seems to have deleted ALL of my iTunes. The folder (and all iTunes files) is still there on my backup, but now the newly-installed iTunes won't import ANYTHING (It at least imported about 1,000 (out of 5,000) songs before. But now it says all files are invalid, regardless of where I attempt to import them from. (although the names of some playlists import -- but they're empty files) It appears that SOME of the music files are located on the backup copy, but simply won't import. Perhaps they're corrupted?

Syncing iTunes Library on Portable Hard Drive at Home and at Work

I have my iTunes Library (including my music, videos, ringtones, podcasts and audiobooks) stored on a portable drive so that I can play my music at home and at work. Now I have a 3G iPhone and synching is causing me problems.
I have always manually copied and deleted music and videos from my iPods because I like that level of control. But the iPhone isn't as intuitive. I turned off syncing on my iPhone for everything but the Apps (because I cannot drag and drop them onto my iPhone in the Devices list of iTunes). And those I am syncing manually by telling iTunes to sync the Apps when I click the sync button (this is the one located on the Applications screen when I choose my iPhone in the devices list).
But today I am at work and I am being told that I am not authorized to use this iPhone on this computer so I cannot sync my Apps. Well, it's the exact same iTunes library. Why is this an issue? I sometimes need to adjust or copy things on my iPhone in two locations. What's the big deal?
A second problem is my Podcasts. For some reason, I cannot copy my Podcasts to my iPhone easily. I have many Podcasts that I collect in my iTunes library and I occasionally want to copy select ones to my iPhone. With an iPod, I'd just copy it over and it would appear in a list of Podcasts. With my iPhone, I have to copy the file to a playlist on my iPhone, and the Podcast doesn't show up in the list of Podcasts underneath my iPhone device. They don't even show up in the list of Music under my iPhone device. I am not even sure I am really deleting the files once I delete them from the playlist on my iPhone. They disappear, but I don't know if I am getting that space back because they aren't listed anywhere else on my iPhone.
Sync problem three... when I try to sync my Apps, the iPhone tries to back itself up to my computer. I click the little "X" button on the iTunes display and the backup stops and the Apps start to update. But I have already deleted the iPhone from the list of "iPhones and iPods backed up to this computer" underneath the Syncing panel of the iTunes preferences and this keeps happening.
I just need my iPhone to be as easy to use as my iPod when it comes to moving content onto it. And it's not. I am forced into this synching scenario and it's not working to my satisfaction. I am feeling "Microsofted" by Apple here... as in, they seem to think they know what I want to do better than I do, and they're trying to make it "easy" for the average user at the expense of my wish for complete control. (I haven't even gotten to my horror of being forced to use iPhoto to manage my photos... I just haven't had the strength to tackle that mountain of potential issues yet... gotta work all this out first)
As a side note, if it's of any value, I have "Disable syncing for iPods and iPhone" turned ON in my iTunes preferences, "Sync only checked songs and videos" turned OFF on my iPhone splash screen, and "Manually manage music and videos" turned ON on my iPhone splash screen.
Helllllllllp!
Thank you.

christopher rigby1 wrote:
You must maintain the actual library files separately on the Mac and PC as they are different formats, and use different file paths for each song.
That is what I was hoping to avoid. That means I would not be able to sync my iPhone on both machines. It also means I would have to sync my libraries on a regular basis.
My primary goal was to be able to put a movie or two and/or a couple of training videos on the iPhone and when I get through them, be able to update the iPhone with new ones to use on the flight back home.
What about keeping the library files for both machines on the external drive, in addition to the actual library. Would that solve my problem?

Question regarding the itunes library files when moving itunes library from 1 hard drive to another.

My itunes library had out grown my 2TB drive (I'm a bit of a podcast addict) so I got a 4TB drive to replace it but for some reason my Mac Pro started to act up and eventually apps became crippled to where they would not open.
So I had no choice but to go back to my 2TB drive for my boot drive for now but my itunes library is now slightly larger than the 2TB drive and won't fit so with my previous 4TB drive connected via a hard drive dock I followed the instructions to move my itunes library to a secondary 4TB drive in my mac pro and that went fine the one thing I noticed is in the article it says not to move the 2 library files but now my itunes media is on a internal drive and the 2 library files are on the hard drive connected to my mac pro via the dock so if I was to remove the drive from the dock the 2 library files would no longer be accessable and my itunes library would not be able to be found even though the media in on one of my internal drives.
Anyone know how I can rectify this issue?

Does this article help: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305451 ?

How do i restory my entire itunes library from the hard drive of a new laptop to itunes?

I recently got a new laptop and would like to transfer my itunes from the old to the new. I backed up the itunes library to an external hard drive, and have transferred it to the hard drive of the new laptop (I haven't deleted the library from the old laptop). I am operating on windows. I am now stuck and can't seem to restore my entire itunes library to itunes. The items purchased from the itunes store are in the library on the new laptop, but the rest of my music is not. How do I restore it to my itunes library? I have tried opening itunes while holding down shift and selecting "choose library" option, but when I select the itunes folder, it doesn't appear in the library.
help?!

Hello ggjsa,
Congratulations on your new laptop! I understand that you have copied your old iTunes Library to your new computer, but you are still not seeing the music. I recommend reviewing Part 5 in the section titled "External drive" in the following article:
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4527
If you are still having trouble transferring the library using this method, you may want to try using the Home Sharing method in the article.
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

How to get ITunes library from external hard drive to new PC

have ITunes folder from dying PC saved on external hard drive. PC now dead. New PC has Windows7, and have loaded ITunes.
Now need to know exactly what to do to get all that lovely music from the external hard drive onto the new Windows7 PC. The ITunes folder has the following inside it:
ITunesMusic folder in it, which looks like all the music is in there.
Album Artwork folder
ITunesLibrary.itl
ITunesMusicLibrary.xml
ITunesLibraryGenius.itdb
ITunesLibraryExtras.itdb
What do I do, and in what order? I'm thinking I should NOT need to plug in the ipod, since everything is saved on the external drive. (I don't want to accidentally wipe the Ipod, since I'm pretty sure it is set to automatically sync.....)
the whole point of doing frequent backups was to not lose anything. Note: did NOT use apple for backups, just regular backup program. Can see the files and folders, just need to knkow what to do.
Thanks in advance for the help!

Drag and drop the whole folder into the iTunes application.
The iTunes application meaning your library once iTunes is open

Problems Downloading iTunes Library From Portable Hard Drive

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