Why can't I simply drag music from my external hard drive to my ipod classic?

Why can't I simply drag music from my external hard drive to my ipod classic using my mac?

downpat wrote:
So after I get my music put on my computer, then moved to my ipod, do I have to delete music from itunes  to free up space?
Not a good idea.
What you could do, is have the Library content on the external hard drive and simply tell your iTunes programme to look on the hard drive for your music etc.. However, once you set that up, that hard drive needs to be connected and ready to read, before you start the iTunes programme. If it isn't ready, iTunes will simply go back to the default location for the music, find nothing and then you'll be back here saying that you've lost your Library.

Similar Messages

  • Why can't iTunes find the music from an external hard drive?

    I moved my music to an external hard drive to free up space on my old laptop.  Since I moved to a new laptop, iTunes never seems to find the music.  I have to go through and manually select a song for it to find it one and then it says should it use this to find the rest of the songs.  Then it crashes.  I have reinstalled iTunes tonight with no real improvement.  I want to be able to create a playlist to upload to my new iPad as well as updating music on my iPod but I can't do any of it.  Please, any advice!

    angelafromlanchester wrote:
    I moved my music to an external hard drive to free up space on my old laptop.  Since I moved to a new laptop, iTunes never seems to find the music. 
    Has the new laptop given the external drive a different drive letter?
    The "missing file" error happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, or the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
    Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to Get Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. (Due to a bug in iTunes 12 you currently have to say No twice!) Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case.
    In some cases iTunes may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links.
    If another application like Windows Media Player has moved/renamed the files then the chances are that subtle differences in naming strategies will make it hard to restore the media to the precise path that iTunes is expecting. In such cases, as long as the missing files can be found somewhere, you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes. See this post for an explanation of how it works.
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  • How do I move music from an external hard drive to an ipod classic 160gb

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    Yes...
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    If the other computer does not use iTunes, then you simply need to connect your hard drive to it, install iTunes and tell iTunes to look for the hard drive at installation time. Subsequent use of that iTunes Library will need you to have the hard drive connected and ready to read before you start iTunes. If not, iTunes will look on the C:\ drive and find nothing.
    If the other computer already has their own iTunes Library, it is possible to tell iTunes to look at an alternative Library as you open iTunes. I think (but I'm not sure) that you need to use SHIFT B as you open iTunes (in Windows), which then allows you to specify which Library to use. (Search these discussions, particularly the iTunes ones for more information on that.)
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  • HT1660 Can I play movies and music from my external hard drive or do I have to re-instll them on my computer?

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    If you would like to add the music from your external hard drive to iTunes without copying it to the iTunes Library on your internal hard drive, you may find the following article helpful:
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    Choose iTunes > Preferences, and click Advanced.
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    From now on, when you drag a file to your library or choose File > Add to Library, the item appears in iTunes, but the actual file isn’t copied or moved.
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    iTunes 12 for Mac: Change where your iTunes files are stored
    Sincerely,
    - Brenden

  • Can i show and play music from my external hard drive in iTunes without adding it to my Mac hard drive?

    I have more music than I can keep on my Macbook hard drive by over 200GB. I'm hoping to be able to show and play all music from my external hard drive in iTunes without having to add any of it to my Macbook Hard Drive

    Hello B3NN13,
    If you would like to add the music from your external hard drive to iTunes without copying it to the iTunes Library on your internal hard drive, you may find the following article helpful:
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    When you add an item already on your computer to your iTunes library, iTunes places a copy of the file in your iTunes folder. The original file remains in its current location.
    You can change this setting so that files are added to your iTunes library without being added to the iTunes folder. You might want to do this, for example, if you prefer to store video files on an external disk but still want to view them in iTunes.
    Choose iTunes > Preferences, and click Advanced.
    Deselect the checkbox next to “Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library.”
    From now on, when you drag a file to your library or choose File > Add to Library, the item appears in iTunes, but the actual file isn’t copied or moved.
    Tip: You can temporarily reverse this setting by holding down the Option key while you drag files to the iTunes window.
    iTunes 12 for Mac: Change where your iTunes files are stored
    Sincerely,
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  • Why can't I import video files from an external hard drive?

    I am using Adobe Premiere Elements 12 on Mac OSX 10.7.5 trying to import video files from a Lacie Rugged External Hard Drive using both firewire and usb, neither with any luck. The error message I receive is:
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    We can't import through the video importer either because the hard drive doesn't show up. We can, however, drag the videos to the desktop and do it that way but we'd like to avoid doing that if possible.
    Thanks
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    Tacomedia
    http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-set-up-an-external-hard-drive-for-use-with-os-x/
    Please check out the above with regard to your external hard drive FAT32 and Mac computer question
    By the way, the external hard drive is formatted FAT32 if that matters
    SG has already commented on this in his initial reply to you. I thought that the above might blend in to supplement what he has said.
    I will watch for further developments in your troubleshooting with SG.
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  • Why can't I read or write from my external hard drive?

    Hey there, I recently borrowed my brother's laptop to use as a media station for listening to music from, and watching movies, in order to free up some space on my main macbook.  In trying to migrate some files over, I discovered that my hard drive, a 320 GB WD Elements drive, is having some problems which I've never encountered before.  It has always worked fine in the past, but now I can't transfer any files to or from it, from either computer.  In all of my troubleshooting, I've gotten various errors, (-36, -50), and various messages saying how the device can't be read or written from, or how some files contian unreadable data, etc.
    Disk Utility found an unused node when verifying the disk, and notified me that the disk needed to be repaired.  I then used Disk Utility, which said it was able to successfully repair it, but the same problem remains, and after verifying the disk, it still says it needs to be repaired.  I've tried to find any files that may be causing the problem, and was finally able to delete a seemingly troublesome file that was stuck in my trash bin from the external drive after trying various apps, (ie Trash It, Cocktail, What's Keeping Me?).  This didn't end up solving anything...I've used terminal to eliminate some other potentially problematic files, with no luck still, and I'm not too confident with Terminal so I don't want to be messing around too much without more guidance.
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    I have this problem too with my Western Digital 1TB My Passport for Mac.
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  • I recently reset my computer and copy my music from an external hard drive to my itunes library.  When I click on a song to play i get an error message that says " the song could not be used because the original file could not be found".  need help

    I recently reset my computer and copy my music from an external hard drive to my itunes library.  When I click on a song to play i get an error message that says " the song could not be used because the original file could not be found".  But when I have my external hard drive plug in the song will play with no problem.  What do I need to do to play my music without having the external harddrive plug in ????????  Please help

    Because the location for each song in your library is on your hard drive.  If the hard drive isn't there, how can iTunes play it?
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    Basically, EASIEST way to do all this, if you don't care about your play counts, etc...
    -Delete EVERYTHING from iTunes, so that your library is now empty.
    -Go to "Advanced" inside of the "Preferences" window, found in the "Edit" drop-down.  You can also access Preferences by pressing Ctrl+, (Press Ctrl and the comma key)
    -Change your iTunes Media Folder Location to something simple, but on your computer. I use C:/iTunes.  Make sure "Keep iTunes Media Folder Organized" and "Copy files to...." are both checked.  You can close Preferences now.
    -Now, drag and drop your music from your hard drive into your iTunes library.  iTunes will automatically add the music to your library, as you would expect, and also creates a copy of each file to place into that iTunes Media Folder you just created.
    Shouldn't have any more problems...

  • How to import music from an external hard drive to my itunes on my computer?

    how can import music from an external hard drive that i saved my itunes music to. i dragged the music from my hard drive to the itunes on my computer but the music does not play from my itunes. it does however play on my ipod. it gives me an error that the original can not be found and do i wish to locate it. i am thinking that i did not drag the right file or all of the files necessary .thanks. kevin

    To import music into your iTunes library on the computer go to iTunes>Help>iTunes Help>Add items to iTunes and follow the instructions

  • How do I load my music from my external hard drive without saving it to my computer?

    I have alot of music and all of it is saved on my external hard drive.  I dont want to save any of the music on my computer because it takes up too much space.  I just want to be able to play my music from my external hard drive.  Can someone answer this?

    Did you import the music on the external hard drive into your iTunes library on your new PC or point iTunes at the location of your library stored on the external hard drive?
    B-rock

  • How do i transfer music from an external hard drive to itunes on my macbook pro?

    how do i transfer music from an external hard drive to itunes on my macbook pro?

    easy just open iTunes and Finder together and drag the songs into iTunes
    George Karakadas, hope this helped u. if it helped u PLZ RATE MY AANSWER AS: "CORRECT ANSWRER" thnx

  • Can I open an imovie project from an external hard drive on a different computer than my own? If so how?

    Can I open an imovie project from an external hard drive on a different computer other than my own? If so how?

    If you used the Finder to move the files, iMovie will have lost track of them. iMovie holds the locations of the Event files, and Project files contain references to those locations. If you move the files, iMovie has no way of knowing where they are.
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  • HT2518 How do I transfer music from an external hard drive to my itunes on my mac? I have put the files into the itunes media, but they are not showing up in iTunes!

    How do I transfer music from an external hard drive to my itunes on my mac? I have put the files into the itunes media, but they are not showing up in iTunes!

    Hi, did you try iTunes>File>Import?

  • Can I view photos and movies from my external hard drive? I used Time Machine and a WD Passport for backup. Since my drive on my MacBook Pro is filling up I was planning to delete some of the movies and photos.

    Can I view photos and movies from my external hard drive? I used Time Machine and a WD Passport for backup. Since my drive on my MacBook Pro is filling up I was planning to delete some of the movies and photos. I wanted to see if I could view them from the hard drive. Thanks

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    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449
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    Jason H. 

  • How do I download music from my external hard drive to itunes

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    iTunes File menu option - Add to Library. Select the files you wish to add to the library, then click the button on the lower right - Open/Add.

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