Problems transfering music from external hard drive to ipod.

When I plug both ipod and external hard driver (WD 1600B014) into my Gateway laptop, only 1 device will work at a time with the other saying "usb device not recognised". This means I am unable to copy selected itunes songs onto my ipod.
This is driving me insane as I have 60gb of music on my hard drive which I want to chop and change frequently.
I have tried all manner of solutions including buying a powered usb hub (belkin) and starting a clean sheet with my laptop, installing all manner of new drivers for the usb ports.
I have the same problem with my 5G ipod 40gb.
I have tried the same problem on my dads desktop computer and the same problem arrises.
Does anyone have any answers as this has been driving me mad for ages and ages.
Is this a common thing or is it a problem with Western digital hard drives (although i thought they were a pretty big brand).
Any help would really be appreciated.

if I want to copy all those song files onto my iPod, they have to be copied into itunes first, and there's not nearly enough space on my desktop for that.
No, you don't have to copy the tracks to your internal hard drive. Just turn off the "copy music to iTunes Music Folder when adding" option in the iTunes Advanced preferences. Then use the "Add To Library" menu command and select the appropriate folder(s) on your external drive. iTunes will add the tracks to the Library but not move them to the internal drive.
Once that's done, use iTunes to transfer the music to the iPod. You can then, if iTunes is set for manual synchronization, remove the tracks from the Library if you want to remove the reference to the external drive.

Similar Messages

Transfering Music from external hard drive

Thought I copied music files from external hard drive to new computer sucessfully, but when I try to play music on computer I get an error message telling me that the original file can't be found and do I want to locate it. Looks like everything is there, artwork, playlists, but can't play. Help. Thanks!!!

Hi,
These Links may be just what you are Looking for...
iTunes on External Drive
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
Moving your iTunes Media Folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
Cheers,

New mac user, need help transferring music from external hard drive

I am new to using a mac. I have had an iphone for almost a year so I am catching on quickly to my macbook but this problem has stumped me and all my mac using friends.
I have a 500gb seagate external hard drive aswell as a new 500gb seagate internal.
I transferred all my music from an old ipod onto the external hard drive. There is about 50gb of music.
When I plug my external into my pc desktop I can see the music folder organized into subfolders with files inside that are encoded unless they are opened in itunes. My pc doesn't have enough internal memory to open and store my music library so I have just left it on the hard drive. When I plug the hard drive into my macbook it will show the music folder as having 50gb but when the folder is opened, none of the subfolders or files are visable.
I went ahead and dragged the folder from my harddrive onto my desktop. It took about an hour to transfer all the files but now the folder is sitting on my desktop and when I open it, it is empty. If i look in the folders info, it says it has the 50gb. If i try to drag and drop it into itunes nothing happens. If I drag and drop it into the itunes music folder, it will go there but will not show up on itunes.
I'm stumped and no longer eligable for apples telephone support as I bought this macbook from a friend. Any help would be greatly appreciated

I have a couple of theories, but I'm not an iTunes expert. These people are, though:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=782
Try posting your question there. Good luck!

Old laptop died, got latest itunes on new laptop and recovered all music from external hard drive but ipad not recognised as device when plugged in? Do i reset my ipad2!!!

Old laptop died, got latest itunes on new laptop and recovered all music from external hard drive but ipad2 not being recognised as a device when plugged in so can't sync? Do i reset my ipad2?!!!! Its only taken 7 months to get to this point.
My ipad is set to sync via wifi but it is still trying to look for my old laptop which has been trashed..but i have deauthorised it and removed it from my account and still not recognised.
Please help (an extreme novice to Apple products)

Sync Your iOS Device with a New Computer Without Losing Data
http://www.howtogeek.com/104298/sync-your-ios-device-with-a-new-computer-without -losing-data/
iPad not appearing in iTunes
http://www.apple.com/support/ipad/assistant/itunes/
iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Mac OS X
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1591
iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Windows
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1538
IOS: Syncing with iTunes
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1386
Apple - Support - iPad - Syncing
http://www.apple.com/support/ipad/syncing/
 Cheers, Tom

Transferring music from peripheral hard drives

I just go a new mac mini(old one died with my itunes libraries) and I have music stored on several peripheral hard drives what is the best way to get it into the new computer that as yet has no music in it. I want to store the music and library on one of the peripheral drives and play from that.

I have a similar problem... my external hard drive, PC formated, is one that can be connected and media viewed through your TV. I want to keep all my "pc" files on the hard drive and add MAC (.avi, .mp3, .mp4, etc.) files to the hard drive to free up space on my laptop.
As you said, I can read/copy files from the hard drive to my MAC but cannot copy from my MAC to the hard drive. Will the software you speak of allow me to copy those files? If not, must I burn all from my files to a disc, reformat the hard drive, and then copy back?

Moving Music from External Hard Drive

I just rebooted my pc and I am trying to put my iTunes music from my hard drive back on the computer. How do I do this? Do I just drop and drag directly from the hard drive to the itunes folder in explore or do I have to bring both folders out to the desktop. Thank you!!

Do I just drop and drag directly from the hard drive to the itunes folder in explore or do I have to bring both folders out to the desktop.
Neither. You need to use the Import function inside iTunes, or drag the folder to the library in the open iTunes application window.
(47964)

Transferring my music from external hard drive into i-tunes

Help!
I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but I've browsed through a lot of the posts and have not been successful.
I am new to using iPods and iTunes, as I've always had a zune. I have about 80gb of my music backed up on my external hard drive. I am trying to transfer my music files to my itunes and sync to my ipod, and am running into all sorts of problems. Some of my music transferred, the rest didn't. So far, I have only been able to transfer about 21 gb of music from the external into iTunes. I have tried to add folder to library, add file to library, and add playlist to library. In all three, it will not let me select the entire external hard drive, or select more than one individual song that is on my external to transfer. When I tried to transfer my music files individually, I can't find them in my iTunes library. What am I doing wrong?
Bottom line is, how do I get the music off my external hard drive and onto my iPod? It won't all fit on my computer, which is one reason it's backed up externally.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. I am getting so frustrated I could cry. Thanks.

Rosanne Maitland wrote:
Please I need some help with moving music on an external hard drive to my i-tunes library. I think that I have cut and pasted it to i-tunes from this hard drive but once the hard drive is disconnected...i-tunes can not find it. I would appreciate a step by step run down on how I might do this
I am having the same problem, only with music I import into iTunes from a CD. The tracks will import, and will synch to my Ipod, but will not play in iTunes unless the original, source CD is in the computer. It seems to me that once iTunes "accepts" imported tracks, it should play them, whether the source CD is present or not.
I suspect that iTunes will be able to "find" all of your songs, and play them, provided the original source (hard drive) is hooked back up to your computer.
But you shouldn't have to do that. iTunes will play most imported tracks without requiring the source to be present. Puzzling.

Transferring data from external hard drive to new replacement Macbook Pro...

Hello,
Apple have arranged to give me a replacement Macbook Pro due to faults with hardware on the one I am currently using. I will be going to pick up the replacement Macbook Pro tomorrow morning.
As a complete novice I just wanted to check that I have backed up the data from my current laptop onto my Iomega external hard drive properly, as I am slightly nervous about losing all my work and not being able to transfer all my files onto my new Macbook Pro tomorrow.
I did a back up using time machine earlier today which took quite a long time and seemed to go successfully. Is this the right thing to have done to save all data from my current laptop onto the external hard drive?
Will transferring data from the external hard drive onto my new Macbook Pro be a simple task?
Will I have to reinstall all my software such as Logic and Pro Tools? Also will my preferences and settings for music software be changed?
I'd greatly appreciate any advice.
Thanks,
Deena

Well it's like this.
If your problem on the Mac didn't affect the software or the TimeMachine backup, then restoring from that using SetupAssistant (when you first set up a new Mac it will ask you to restore) should go fine.
HOWEVER, if there are software issues on the Mac that also transferred to the TimeMachine drive, that will only transfer them back onto your new computer.
You can't very easily just pick out the things you want to restore from TimeMachine with, it doesn't give that fine detail of control, and if it's really messed up, it might not restore anything at all.
The golden rule of backups is to maintain two separate and easily accessible hardware copies of your data off the machine at all times.
Since you don't know for sure if the TimeMachine restore is going to work as intended, and your only other source is going to disappear, I'd advise a additional backup of your Music, Documents, Pictures and Movie folders etc., to another regular external drive via regular drag and drop copy methods.
The operating system and programs can all be reinstalled from fresh sources on the new machine, provided you have the AppleID and password, license codes for your programs, email passwords and any other necessary information to re-establish the license on the new machine.
(In some cases licensed software HAS NOT transferred to a new machine with a TimeMachine restore and had to be reinstalled)
Some times you have to contact the developer or "uninstall" the licensed program so it sends a signal to their servers that the program has been removed, else your license code may not work on the new machine.
You might decide the new machine would be better off with a fresh install of your programs that you know are 100% compatible with Lion etc., leaving a lot of older stuff you installed over the years off the new machine, if you restore from TimeMachine, you don't have this option. You pretty much get all the crap along for the ride,
If your new machine gets all crapped up, then restoring Lion is going to going to be a tough challenge, as you need a strong reliable Internet connection to download a fresh copy of Lion from Apple servers (no more disks). Once you do that, then somehow you have to use third party software ($$) to cherry pick your files out of TimeMachines trap. More headaches than you anticpated, and likely a charge by a specialist.
So I'd advise another hard drive with a copy of just your files, just in case a crap-up occurs
You can restore Lion yourself if it craps up, install programs from fresh sources as you know how to do, use the old license codes and then return your files manually exactly back into their same Music, Pictures, Documents, and Movies (etc, not Library) folders as before.
The key to this manual method is to make sure to use the same user name as before, so all your file location data pathnames retained by program files like iTunes to where the songs are located on the drive, are matched. Once you open these programs and restablish the links in OS X, then you can move them around.
Some tricks, if you use iPhoto, you can right click "show package contents" and inside is a folder with your Originals, copy that out and you can reimport your pictures into the new iPhoto Library on the new machine.
So use TM if you dare, but prepared to do things manually is my opinion.
TM restores have not been all that reliable or dependable, the more messed up your machine is, the worst the restore seems to be.
Good Luck

Problem running Itunes from external hard drive- Please Help!

So, last night I transferred my entire music folder over to an external hard drive. It copied all the files and I then proceeded to tell itunes where my new music folder was located. The problem I ran into was when I actually deleted the music files from my internal hard drive my library won't automatically find the files. When I click on a song it comes up with an error message saying, "original file cannot be found, would you like to locate file?". If I tell it yes, I can then manually tell it where the file is, and it will play. I'm really hoping there is an easier way around this issue because going in and doing this for every song in my library would take years. Should I clear out the library and then drag it from the external hard drive? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot.
Sean

I am experiencing a similar problem. I already had all my files on an external drive, where I had transfered them a few months back, and everything was working fine. I have now moved them, again, to a larger external drive, did everything the same, but now receive the message "original file cannot be found, would you like to locate file?" I was advised to use the "add to library" button under "FILE" in the menu bar and all the music was finally imported into iTunes, but the problem now is that the new data on the music files is missing all the metadata, and I am still stuck with all the original files with the "!" in front of each file that is going to have to be manually deleted one file at a time, all 30,000 of them. I would like a way to start over and get it right the first time. Anyone have any solutions? I have found a program, "Super Remove Dead Tracks" which should solve the problem of eliminating the "!" tracks, but so too all the metadata. Ideally I'd like to be able to locate the original files with all the attached metadata and get back to where I was 24 hours ago.

Music from external hard drive not showing up

I am new to using a mac. I have had an iphone for almost a year so I am catching on quickly to my macbook but this problem has stumped me and all my mac using friends.
I have a 500gb seagate external hard drive aswell as a new 500gb seagate internal.
I transferred all my music from an old ipod onto the external hard drive. There is about 50gb of music.
When I plug my external into my pc desktop I can see the music folder organized into subfolders with files inside that are encoded unless they are opened in itunes. My pc doesn't have enough internal memory to open and store my music library so I have just left it on the hard drive. When I plug the hard drive into my macbook it will show the music folder as having 50gb but when the folder is opened, none of the subfolders or files are visable.
I went ahead and dragged the folder from my harddrive onto my macbook desktop. It took about an hour to transfer all the files but now the folder is sitting on my desktop and when I open it, it is empty. If i look in the folders info, it says it has the 50gb. If i try to drag and drop it into itunes nothing happens. If I drag and drop it into the itunes music folder, it will go there but will not show up on itunes.
I'm stumped and no longer eligable for apples telephone support as I bought this macbook from a friend. Any help would be greatly appreciated. (Please use extreme lay terms as i'm just learning the lingo...thx)

incase anyone is wondering, i figured out how to get the files onto the macbook. I transferred the files from my hard drive onto a flashdrive using my pc and when i plugged the flashdrive into the macbook the files showed up and could be dragged and dropped into itunes! yay!

Can't play music from external hard drive through iTunes on Windows 8?

I recenty bought a new laptop running Windows 8 with a small internal hard drive, so I don't want to store all my music on it. I backed up my iTunes library onto an external hard drive, but when I plug this into my new laptop I can't play my music no matter what I do.
I have tried:
- selecting the newly created iTunes library by pressing Shift when opening iTunes and playing a song directly through the iTunes player. It selects the song, comes up with the speaker icon next to it to indicate it is playing, but the time doesn't count down and no music plays
- I have gone into Advanced Preferences and specified the iTunes media folder location, still no songs play
- coped a single song onto my new laptop desktop and tried to play this through iTunes, Media Player and the Music app. Media player says "Windows Media Player encountered a problem while playing the file". The Music app says it can't find any music on the computer, so when I select the music folder from my hard drive, it says "Can't Play. Make sure your computer's sound and video cards are working and have the latest drivers, then try again".
I know my laptop can play sound and video as I can watch YouTube videos with no problems. I went to Windows Update, and there are no available updates, I already have every available update.
I have also plugged in a different external hard drive, with different music files on it, and have encountered the exact same problems. It seems I can't play any music at all on this laptop. I know the files are not corrupted, as I can plug both hard drives into a different laptop that runs on Windows 7 and play the music on them with no troubles. Could it be a problem with the files compatibility with Windows 8?
I can also access my iPhone backup through this iTunes library on the new computer, so I know there is no problem with my backup.

I am experiencing a similar problem in Windows 7 64bit. Since my laptop has a 128gb SSD, I have loaded my iTunes library on to an external drive. I can sync my iPhones and iPads from this library, and the songs play fine from those devices. However, when I select a song from my library, and click the play button, nothing happens. iTunes does nothing. I have also tried right-clicking mp3s in my library and selecting "Play", with no results. I do not receive an error message of any kind.
I have also noticed that some of my mp3's within iTunes denote the Time as 00:00. The same mp3's will play and register properly using other mp3 players on my computer, and they also play normally on my iPhones and iPads.
I am running Windows 7 x64 on a Lenovo T530, in iTunes 11.1.3. Everything else in iTunes appears to function normally. I can listen to internet radio stations without an issue, through iTunes, and they play as they should. I have tried three different external drives, with different drive formats, and they all have the same issue. If I copy my iTunes library back to my internal drive, iTunes will play my mp3s.
I did not have this issue with iTunes 10, so I am assuming it is something that has occured within the last few updates.
Has anyone found a fix for this? Unfortunately, I am forced to use iTunes 11 because of my iOS devices, otherwise I would revert to iTunes 10.

Moving music from external hard drive to i-tunes

Please I need some help with moving music on an external hard drive to my i-tunes library. I think that I have cut and pasted it to i-tunes from this hard drive but once the hard drive is disconnected...i-tunes can not find it. I would appreciate a step by step run down on how I might do this

Rosanne Maitland wrote:
Please I need some help with moving music on an external hard drive to my i-tunes library. I think that I have cut and pasted it to i-tunes from this hard drive but once the hard drive is disconnected...i-tunes can not find it. I would appreciate a step by step run down on how I might do this
I am having the same problem, only with music I import into iTunes from a CD. The tracks will import, and will synch to my Ipod, but will not play in iTunes unless the original, source CD is in the computer. It seems to me that once iTunes "accepts" imported tracks, it should play them, whether the source CD is present or not.
I suspect that iTunes will be able to "find" all of your songs, and play them, provided the original source (hard drive) is hooked back up to your computer.
But you shouldn't have to do that. iTunes will play most imported tracks without requiring the source to be present. Puzzling.

Playing music from external hard drive, iTunes

Hello all,
After years of wanting to own a MacBook Pro, I finally have one. This is the first Mac computer that I have owned so I am still new to everything. One issue that I am having is an issue that I have had over the years on Windows, that always took me hours to get straight. I am going to explain how my iTunes has been setup on all of my previous computers so that hopefully you guys can make sense of what I am trying to accomplish as I could not find a solution on here.
The way iTunes is set up on my Windows PC's was that all of my music was on my external hard drive. Whenever I would want to use my music through iTunes, I would have to plug in my external hard drive and once it boots I can now play music. Without the hard drive plugged in I can only see all the information about my music on iTunes but I cannot play it since the hard drive is disconnected. I am trying to do this same setup with my macbook but I am having difficulty accomplishing that. I honestly do not remember how I did it on my Windows PC other than it took forever. I kept getting duplicates but after trying multiple times, I got it to where there were no duplicates and everything was fine.
What steps do I go about in order to be able to see all my music information on iTunes but having the actual music file on my external? I like it this way as it saves my internal hard drive storage and I don't mind having to plug in my external when needed. I have only attempted once so far to do this procedure on my new MacBook, I failed. It transferred all of the music and worked just how I wanted it to work. However, it created a duplicate of every song, which there is thousands of, so I deleted everything and now iTunes doesn't have anything. Any help is appreciated, sorry for the long post.

So after messing around for awhile I finally figured it out and got everything working how I want it and had it on my Windows machine. It took me forever to find the iTunes library file as it was not in its default location on my Windows machine. I finally figured out what needs to be done and it is really easy like you explained. I discovered that my issue is: 1. The default location of these common iTunes files is not in its default location likely due to me moving it the last time I did this from my prior Windows machine and 2. My external hard drive needs to be cleaned up, at least my music section.
What I am going to do in the future is purchase a new external hard drive specifically for my Mac backups and music. I will have to take a day and transfer my huge library to the new drive so that I ensure everything is organized and kept clean and not make this process more difficult than it should in the future. I am however missing some of my tracks (noted with the !) I do believe that this is due to me accidentally changing the file paths on my external at some point in the past and left certain files on my Windows internal drive. This issue is solved though, hopefully. I appreciate your help.
BTW: I am loving my 15" rMBP, I wish the price didn't hold me back as long as it did.

Screen sometimes freezes when transferring to/from external hard drive

I have a brand-new macbook pro 15" (standard settings). Ever since I've taken it out of the box it's been having this intermittent problem where the screen freezes. The first time it happened was when I was migrating my files from my time machine backup. I didn't make much of it then but it has kept happening for the last 3 weeks or so since I got the computer.
When it happens I can still move the cursor around the screen but nothing responds. I can't close or quit anything, or even force quit. The only thing that works is to restart the computer using the power button. This has led to me losing work on more than one occasion (VERY frustrating). I've tried leaving it for a while to see if it eventually 'wakes up'. It doesn't. I've checked the hard drive and other hardware and haven't found any errors. I've installed all software updates.
All I've figured out is that this seems to happen when I'm transferring large amounts of data to or from an external hard drive. It happens with several different drives, which work fine on other computers, so it's not just the case of one malfunctioning external hard drive. It doesn't happen consistently either - sometimes transferring the same info later on works fine.
Has anyone had similar problems and/or (even better) found a solution? I'm planning to ring apple support once they're open and will update this if I find out anything else.

Tia,
Songs transfer to the iPod form iTunes. iTunes can obtain the song files from any location: main HD, secondary HD, ExHD.
You need to get the song files on the ExHD recognized by iTunes. Then you just need to sync the iPod to iTunes.
This is the high-level explanation. If you need more info, read the links below and/or post back.
iPod Tutorial
iTunes Tutorial

How to play itunes music from external hard drive

How do I either play continuous music from my external hard drive, or make itunes recognize my external hard drive as the library.

Hi Jim
I've recently upgraded to a macbook Pro and I copied all data, profiles etc across from my old macbook. I have also created a second account in my mackbook Pro. I am able to play my iTunes music from the external HD in the 'old' account, but not in the 'new' account, despite trying what you've said above. On the external HD, there are two folders: iTunes music and iTunes media. I have tried selecting each of these, but both times, I get this message: "An iTunes library file could not be found in the folder "iTunes Media". Please choose a different folder." ... Please can you help?
Many thanks in advance!

Problems transfering music from external hard drive to ipod.

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