Using external hard drive with itunes

Question

so i am using a 250g lacie hard drive to store all of my music. i set my itunes preferences to have my itunes music folder on the lacie drive. since then i have been importing my whole cd collection into itunes and onto the lacie drive. i have noticed that it is a bit slower when i import onto the lacie drive versus straight onto the computer's drive and im not sure if there is an easy solution for this problem.
but the BIG problem is here, whenever i unplug the lacie drive the preferences automatically default my itunes music folder back onto my computer's hard drive. is there anyway to avoid this from happening? thanks.

Answer 1

is there anyway to avoid this from happening?
No. iTunes has to 'know' were to import the next CD. If it doesn't find the 'iTunes Music folder location' (as set in Preferences) it reverts to the default location.
Always attach your EHD before running iTunes.
You can also run a small script instead of iTunes.
It will not run iTunes if the EHD is not attached, thus avoiding resetting the 'iTunes Music folder location'
tell application "Finder" to set my_name to displayed name of (get info for file (path to me as string))
set EHD_name to text ((offset of "-" in my_name) + 1) thru -1 of my_name
if EHD_name ends with ".app" then set EHD_name to text 1 thru -5 of EHD_name
tell application "Finder"
set disknames to name of every disk
if disknames contains EHD_name then
tell application "iTunes" to activate
else
display dialog "Please mount (attach) the drive " & EHD_name giving up after 10
end if
end tell
Compile the script and name it: NameOfChoice-NameOfEHD
The first part of the name is unimportant. The second part of the name contains the exact name of your EHD. The two parts of the name are connected by a hyphen (no space left and right of the hyphen)
Run it instead of iTunes. If your EHD is attached, iTunes is launched.
If not, the script will tell you to attach your EHD.
Hope this helps.
M
17' iMac fp 800 MHz 768 MB RAM   Mac OS X (10.3.9)   Several ext. HD (backup and data)