Tiger, iTunes library on external drive, no longer recognised

Still using Tiger on the iMac.
Software update caem up with iphoto/Pro Apps updates and a security update.
Duly installed the lot.
When I rebooted my heart sank when iTunes could not find the external drive library.
Rebooted several times, no joy, thought "why do discs fail a few days after you think I need to back that up soon?".
At this point also realsied the significance of telling everyone not to rely on AppleTv for a backup, having not backed up recent weeks iTunes Store purchases.
Tachycardic and nervous connected said drive to the Macbook running Leopard and it worked instantly.
Back to the iMac, no luck, and after much testing found the drive is simply no longer recognised on the Belkin hub it's been on for about a year. Other identical drives are still recognised.
Unplugging the hub and connecting the drive to the Mac direct it's recognised again. Absolutely reproducible and I can't explain it.
Have backed the content up now, but I'm convinced this is related to latest security update or peerhaps Apple team hacking into my iMac after all my negative comments about take 2
So, I know this may be a bit OT, but then again it is to do with the iTunes library foir AppleTV.
Any similar experiences or suggestions?
Good time to remind everyone - remember to back up your media files - these things always happen out of teh blue.
AC

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After connecting my itunes library (on external drive) to another laptop iphone no longer recognized

I'm hoping to get some help on a matter of 'portability' of my itunes library.
My itunes library resides at work attached to my MacBook Pro 17" running 10.7.5 but on an external USB drive.
Using iTunes 10.7 on Macbook Air and 11.1 on MacbookPro (to which the iTunes library is normally attached from the USB drive).
I bought a Macbook Air to travel with also running 10.7.5.
I connected the external drive (where the itunes library resides) now that I'm away from from the office to the Macbook Air, changed the itunes media location to the external USB drive itunes library, with "Keep iTunes Media Folder Organised" and "Copy files to iTunes Media Folder when adding to my library" then did the File/Library/Organise Library/Consodilate Files function.
Alas, my iphone when connected to the MacBook Air is still not recognised on sync. I want to be able to back-up my iphone when not at the office (but not to the iCloud, to a local drive). Is this possible?
Thanks very much!
Dan
Message was edited by: DZReinstein

You might want to post this over in the iTunes Match forum.

Can't find iTunes Library on external drive after iTunes 8 install

My music library (50GB) has always been on an external drive. After installing iTunes 8 I went to preferences to change from default to this drive but nothing showed up. The complete library is still on the disk. Tried reinstalling V 7 but still no luck.
Any ideas how to "reconnect" the library ?
iPOD is also still complete. Is there a reverse recovery that my iPOD content could be retrieved to my external drive as the library ?
Message was edited by: samben52

Changing the Library location within iTunes instructs the program were to store future music when Importing - not where to go look for current music.
You music files may be on the ExHD, but your music metadata (Playlists, Playcounts, Ratings, and other potential important attributes) are kept in the Library Database file. See: What are the iTunes Library files?
If you did not save a copy of this file, you may be in for a long recovery.
This well-written iLounge Article is a must-read for anyone who wants/needs a better understanding of how iTunes manages your music. It may shed some light on what you need to do next. or at the very least, help you describe your specific problem here a bit better.
Also see: Managing your iTunes Library on an External Hard Drive
Best of Luck

Moved iTunes library to external drive

NOTE: I have the most recent version of iTunes (as of 14 DEC 08).
I moved my iTunes library to an external hard drive. The music videos I purchased shows an exclamation icon next to them. Is there a way I can reference all those videos to their new location on the external hard drive? Or is the only way to do it is one at a time? Thanks!

No longer an issue.

Importing iTunes library from external drive

Cannot play iTunes after importing library from PC into Mac.

Simply highlight and delete
But doing so it will also trash all playlists, data added, ratings, etc. Something the OP said about having to rename lots of files during a previous library rebuild suggests to me they may even be stored in WAV format. If the OP deletes them from the library all the labels will be lost, they will get added back with only file names as track information and they will have to be renamed again.
This will delete not only the reference to the file, but the library.itl file that Limnos refers to.
I don't think so. The file will still be there, it will just be stripped of any entries.
Now you should have an empty iTunes.
Now go to where the files are on your external drive. Two options. Choose the one you prefer:
In iTunes, go to >> Preferences >> Advanced -- Select the location of your files on the external drive. Tick OK and iTunes should re-add all the files. Depending on how many, it may take some time as it organises everything. But your files will remain on the ext drive. Any new songs you get will get added to your external drive by default now.
Changing this preference setting will not get iTunes to inventory the files in the media folder, nor add them. It simply tells iTunes to put any new media added in the location selected.
Or, select the files on your ext drive, hold down OPTION and drag the files into iTunes. It will add them to your library, but leave the files on your external drive. Note that any new files you add directly to iTunes (like from the store) will be added to your default iTunes folder, not the external drive.
Well, yes, it will do it, essentially creating a brand new library that the OP will have to organize again vs. using the existing organization. My reservations about the need to rebuild the library from scratch still exist.
If the OP desires to keep storing media on the external drive in the long run it is best simply changing the preferece to use the external drive for media storage.

Hold entire iTunes library on external drive including iPhone backups

I have successfully moved my iTunes library to an external drive. This allows me to plug the external into any of my Macs, hold Option while launching iTunes, and manage the library. That way, I can use either mac as my home sharing server and can travel with any laptop I'd like.
Now I'd like to incorporate my iOS backups so I don't have to use a single computer to sync my phones and iPads. I travel quite a bit and take different laptops with me. While I'm home I want to use my Macbook Pro. Is it possible to sync my iPhone with any computer as long as I'm running an installation of iTunes from an external hard dirve?

http://osxdaily.com/2009/09/11/iphone-backup-location/ - your iPhone files are backed up at the following location:
in Mac OS X:
~(your home directory)/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/

Keeping iTunes library on external drive

I have moved all of my music files to an external hard drive to free up my laptop's drive. Now I want iTunes to read and save to the external hdd without moving any of the files back to my laptop. How can I set this up? Please Help. Thanks.

you have to tell i tunes that you want your music stored and read from your ex hard drive.if i remember you go to itunes on your computer then in upper left corner at top go to edit>preferences...then put in your storage folder or harddrive info. after you have copied your itunes library to the harddrive, close out itunes and unplug the hard drive. hook up the harddrive back to the computer open the harddrive, open your music folder in the harddrive, play 1 song out of the harddrive, (itunes should reopen on its own as long as it is the default music player on your computer)the song should start playin. this tells you that it downloaded correctly. once this is fine, you can erase your i tunes music library on your computers' internal harddrive. you then can reload the file into itunes(just remember that you changed where your music file is stored and read from)this will repopulate your tracks and albumsand will be kept in your computer. every time you want to play music, hook up the ex harddrivefirst then open itunes on your computer. this is very important especially when you go to add or download a cd or music, otherwise if you open itunes without the harddrive hooked up first your new download will go to your computers internal harddrive and start taking up space on your computer. you will also know if you did it right by disconnecting the external harddrive then open up itunes on your computrt and play a song, you should get an error msg saying (itunes cannot play the file because origional file cannot be found)do you want to locate the file? close it, hook up the harddrive wait a min then play a song and it will play.research other similiar questions and the ere will be exact way to do this. if your having problems.

Viewing itunes library on external drive

Ok this is my problem. I have my itunes application running on my powerbook and the tracks are stored on an external lacie drive.
My girlfriend has a G3 imac with her own itunes and library of tracks on the G3 drive. How can I view my library of tracks on my external drive only without messing up her itunes list , can i swap btween the libraries easily?

Sorry I just realise, what you want is just play your music from your lacie but not import it! You can't, unless you use another application I found this one but it's a shareware, sorrry.
http://homepage.mac.com/sroy/libra/
iMAC G5. TIGER. 1.8GHZ. 1GB DDR. 320GB WD/SATA Mac OS X (10.4.8) Ext HD Lacie FW250GB. ipod30gb. original HD boxed external. bluetooth samsumgE9

How to relocate itunes library to external drive

Hi Folks,
In another forum on the above topic I found an answer that consisted as a TWENTY-FOUR-PAGES-long forum discussion. I hope that there is someone who can nutshell 24 pages for this newbie
I have an external SimpleTech hard drive, Windows Xp, Compaq, laptop. I don't want to lose my itunes library, if my computer crashes. And, I don't want to eat up all my computer memory with music and podcast/vodcast files.
1) Is there a simple, step-by-step operation to relocate my itunes library to my external drive? I hope one of you are willing to take the time to help me out.
2) In addition to HOW to do it, what does it mean, practically? I mean itunes remains on my computer, right? And, it just goes back and forth to the external drive for my music files, right?
3) Can I put my album artwork on the external, as well?
Thank you
Randy

Is there a simple, step-by-step operation to relocate my itunes library to my external drive?
Yes:
- Launch iTunes, click Edit > Preferences > Advanced tab > General tab
- Click the 'change' button to redirect your iTunes Music Folder to your external hard drive. It's sometimes helpful if you open that hard drive through Windows Explorer first, and create a folder on it called 'iTunes' or something similar.
- Select both options to "Keep iTunes music folder organized" and "copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library" and then click OK
- Click your Advanced menu and choose Consolidate Library
This copies your library files onto the hard drive and ensures that iTunes looks there for the files. Once this is completed, and you've verified iTunes is reading the files from the external drive (you can right click on the file and click Get Info, then click the Summary tab, and at the bottom it'll say "Where" and show you where your file is stored) you can go into your My Music folder on the computer and delete the iTunes files.
The iTunes program files will still be stored on your C: drive, to make Windows happy, and it just refers to your external hard drive to find the files so it can play them and sync them to your iPod.
When you follow the above steps, your Album Artwork should copy to the external drive as well.
Apple has this support document on the issue:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
Hope this is helpful
CG

One Itunes Library, 2 external drives in different locations...

Here's my problem... I go everywhere with my laptop... iphone and ipod... My laptop contains my itunes library.. I connect at work to an external 1tb drive which houses my entire music collection..
My goal is to be able to copy that drive (64,000 songs) to another external that I can leave at home.. I want to be able to plug in both places without having to carry the external with me..
Is is possible to have one library and 2 externals with identical music folders? Any help would be appreciated.

How to use multiple iPods with one computer , describes two methods.
If you both use the same account (and one iTunes library), the easiest way is to create separate (Smart) Playlists for each iPod.
Hope this helps.
M
17' iMac fp 800 MHz 768 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.7) Several ext. HD (backup and data)

How do I reconnect to an iTunes Library onan external Drive?

I have a huge iTunes library comprised of 10,000's of songs and 1000's of videos. I keep this library on an 8TB Raid 5 network attached storage device. I reciently had a catestrophic hard drive crash on the computer running my iTunes application (the local HD on my computer, not the network drive which is reasonably imune to an HD failure). Everything is gone from that computer's drive except for the files in scope of my automatic backups. There are two locations on my external hard drive that are candidates for the location of the iTunes files:
M:\Music\iTunes and
M:\SharedFiles\Music\iTunes.
Location #1 looks to be an early version of my library prior to consolidation into the "SharedFiles" location. My delemma is that I have attempted to point my iTunes (on my replacement computer) to location #2 and I don't get any of my library files. I am running Windows 7 (the old computer was running Vista). Looking at the M:\SharedFiles\Music\iTunes\iTunes Library.xml file (using a text edditor) In the first "<dict>" record I see: "<key>Music Folder</key><string>file://localhost/M:/SharedFiles/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Music /</string>". So, thinking that was the "iTunes Media Folder" I pointed my iTunes application to that folder. I used Edit->Preferences->Advanced to change the location of my library. This resulted in an empty iTunes (no music,no movies,no devices).
One thing I noticed is that before changing the iTunes folder was pointing to a default location of "C:\Users\Bill\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media". However, I do not have an "iTunes Media" folder at either location #1 or #2. Under location #2 I see sub-folders for "Album Artwork", "Automatically Add to iTunes", "iTunes Music", and "Previous iTunes Libraries". Within the "iTunes Music" sub-folder I see a "Movies" folder with sub-folders for all of my movies, and a "Music" folder with sub-folders for all of my music.
After all of this, my question is: How do I connect my new iTunes application to my networked iTunes Library?

I figured it out!
After setting the iTunes Library to M:/SharedFiles/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music, I then used File->Library->Import Playlist and then navigated to M:/SharedFiles/Music/iTunes and added it. This then went to work for an hour or so reading my entire library. After that I connected to iCloud, Match, shared with home network, and connected to iTunes Store. I am now watching my movies on my big screen using Apple TV again.

I have my iTunes library on external drive and can access from any PC. However I cannot access from new MacBokk Air.

My iTunes library is on an external drive and been using it on two PCs with no problem.
Now that I got a new MacBook Air I want to access the same iTunes library from the external drive and keep all the library and media on that external drive.
When I try to change to another iTunes library by hitting "option" with iTunes and select the library on the external hard drive I get the following message:
"The iTunes library file is locked, on a locked disk, or you do noy have write permission for this file."
I have read many posts in which many suggest to go to the library or media file on the PC and right click to make sure the read only tab is not checked.
I uncheked the read only tab and gave full permission to all the iTunes files and folders.
The unusual part is that I can use this external drive on many PCs that I have tried with no problem at all.
I just select a different library, which is on my external hard drive and everything works, play lists and everything.
However, when I try it on a MAC i get the message stated above:
What can I do to be able to access my External iTunes library from new MacBook Air while keeping everything on the external drive like I can on PCs?
I am running latest version of iTunes and Mavericks.
Please advise.

Here are the official Apple Support instructions:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Ciao.

ITunes Library on External Drive - NO .xml file

i recently had some serious hard drive corruption on my old computer, and figuring it was time for an upgrade anyway I decided to buy a new MacBook.
i had been storing all of my iTunes music on an external hard drive. i'm trying to figure out how to get my new MacBook to be able to access the music. I've changed the location of my library to the external drive in iTunes preferences, but no luck.
I know that iTunes has an .xml file where it stores things like song titles, data, etc etc -- unfortunately, that .xml file is on my old, ruined hard drive -- all i have is my external drive with my MP3s.
what do i do at this point? how can i access all of these songs using iTunes on my new MacBook without that .xml file?

There are 2 files that give iTunes and other apps the info the need to perform. The files are iTunes Library and iTunes Music Library.xml.
The default location of the 2 files is HD>Users>User Account>Music>iTunes - do not move regardless where your actual tunes are located. If the files are not present in the default location then iTunes will create new files with no info in them until you add the tunes back to the library.
This is from the iTunes Help Menu with a search for "files":
What are the iTunes library files?
The iTunes library is a database iTunes uses to organize your music. Two iTunes library files are created and maintained by iTunes for different purposes. They're both in the iTunes folder.
Mac OS X
/Users/username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library
/Users/username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml
Microsoft Windows
\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl
\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music Library.xml
The two different iTunes library files serve different purposes.
iTunes Library (iTunes Library.itl in Windows)
This file is a database of the songs in your library and the playlists you've created. Some song-specific data is saved in this file. If you delete the file, iTunes creates a new, empty copy when you open the application, but any playlists, song ratings, comments, or other information you created is lost. The iTunes Library file is only used by iTunes.
Note: The library file name for versions of iTunes prior to 4.9 was "iTunes 4 Music Library" for Mac OS X and "iTunes 4 Music Library.itl" for Windows. After upgrading to iTunes 4.9 or later, the older library files are moved to a "Previous iTunes Libraries" folder.
Tip: New versions of iTunes sometimes include enhancements to the iTunes library. When you open the new version of iTunes, iTunes upgrades your existing library to the new format and places a copy of the old library in the Previous Libraries folder. If everything goes fine during your upgrade to the latest version of iTunes, you can delete the older iTunes Library files.
iTunes Music Library.xml
This file contains some (but not all) of the same information stored in the iTunes 4 Music Library file. The purpose of the iTunes Music Library.xml file is to make your music and playlists available to other applications on your computer. In Mac OS X other iLife applications (like iPhoto, iDVD, and iMovie) use this file to make it easier for you to add music from your iTunes library to your projects.
MJ

Reinstall of OS: iTunes Library on external drive not recognized

I've always had my iTunes library on my external drive. Now that I reinstalled my OS iTunes will not open the library. I've navigated to the correct library using the advanced preferences but that's not doing it. I've tried discarding the existing library in the music folder. Can't seem to find the answer.
Thanks

JS,
I had some trouble following macmenno's instructions, but have had almost complete success. If you DO have your original itunes library file, this should work for you too.
Background, my situation:
My harddisk was failing but warned me, so i copied the ENTIRE itunes folder to an external drive. The iTunes folder includes the "itunes library" file, the music folder, and the xml file. This was suggested in a book i have on iLife as the best way to backup itunes to an external HD to preserve playlists, et al. But the book failed to say how to copy the folder back if needed.
So the first time i naively just copied the entire folder back to the imac (new HD) but itunes failed to "find" it, even though it was exactly where i had deleted the equivalent default (empty) files/folder. Playing around i managed to get itunes to find the music but not the playlists and ratings...i.e., it was not finding the library file.
Macmenno's instructions:
I started all over: With Itunes closed, I deleted all three items from the itunes folder: the library file, music folder, xml file. to be safe, i also emptied the trash since itunes seemed to be following the files. But i left the itunes folder in place, albiet empty. Per macmenno's instructions, i then copied ONLY the itunes library file and the xml file from my external HD to the imac itunes folder. I then opened itunes, checked the preferences to be sure it was pointing in the right direction. I then dragged the Music Folder from the ext-HD and dropped it on the library icon in the itunes program window.
That worked. i have my playlists, ratings, comments, et all.
Only problem is i now have duplicate listings of all music songs -- one with an exclamation point that doesn't play (apparently came from my itunes library file before i dropped in the songs), one that does play.
So macmenna, if you are still with us, how can i delete the 3,000 song titles with exclamation points? I tried to click on the column head to sort them all together, then block-mark and delete... but apparently we can not sort on that column head.
Or did i miss something in your instructions?
Thanks. and good luck to you JS.
SB
imac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.7) itunes 6.0.5

Import iTunes Library from External Drive to New Computer with Vista

I can't seem to "import" my entire iTunes library from my external hard drive to my new computer. However, I can import songs one-by-one. There must be a way to transfer the whole file at once but it is beyond me. Anyone have a solution?

Hi I am new and have found a way to import Files & Folders over my home network and or other drives.
Start in File, click "Add File to Library", or "Add Folder to Library". In the “look in” dropdown window, locate the File or folder and double click on it. It should begin to transfer. I have never transferred an enter library though.
On a personal note,
I have come to realize that I can only transfer iTunes music. I can not transfer or even find the music that I have installed from a CD into my iTunes library. iTunes dose recognize even the folder that such music is in. If any of you have an answer to this problem let me know.
Thanks

Tiger, iTunes library on external drive, no longer recognised

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