Why is external hard drive music deleting?

I have 11,000 songs - they are all on an external hard drive. Itunes knows to look to that hard drive. However, when I download new music, I have noticed if I don't save the new music to the hard drive, it will erase all 11,000 songs and only show the new.
I downloaded 40 songs, saved them to the downloaded folder and later drug them into Itunes. All 11,040 songs showed. The next morning I woke up and there were only 40 songs in my library. Where did my 11,000 go?
This has happened before and I have redirected Itunes to the external, but have had to wait for all 11,000 to download again and then had to resync my ipod. That is not practical.

Each time you start iTunes it should show you all the content it has last time you ran it. At present some users running AVG are finding that sometimes when they start iTunes most of their content is missing. What remains listed is their iTunes purchases, though these are in fact links to the stream or download those songs from the store. iTunes doesn't selectively display or not display media based on location, though it may fail to play media that isn't where it is expected to be. This can happen if an external drive letter changes.
If iTunes starts up showing less media than you expect it to then the obvious conclusion is that the library has become corrupt. The media is likely to all still be in place on the hard drive. You should be able restore an earlier version of the library in the way described in this post. If something completly different is going on I'd be interested in the details. I may be able to offer useful suggestions. If you don't already do so you ought to backup against such problems.
tt2

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New PC, I want itunes to open up in my external hard drive (music location) but it opens in the icloud. Itunes file location is correct but it navigates to the cloud, help!

I have a new PC, Iwanted to direct itunes to my external hard drive (music location) but nothing seemed to work. I've now uninstalled and re installed itunes locating it in my external hard drive, however when I open itunes it directs itself to the icloud. I've checked the file location and it is in the external hard drive. How do I direct it to the correct place?

Setting the path to the media folder only tell iTunes where to put new content, not which library file to open. If you moved your entire library to the external drive then hold down shift as you start iTunes and browse to the iTunes Library.itl file. If you only copied the media folder you'll either need to redo the migration from your old computer, or import the media folder into a fresh library.
tt2

How do I keep a file on my external hard drive and delete it from my internal hard drive?

I have a iMac with 1 TB internal hard drive, connected to it is a 3 TB Seagate external hard drive using Time Machine to back up my computer.
I use this computer for making family movies with videos and pictures. My 1 TB internal hard drive is now almost full with only 200 GBs of storage left on it. My external drive has 1.62 TBs of space left on it. I would like to delete a lot of the videos on my internal hard drive and keep them only on the external hard drive. I've tried this and it tells me I cannot do it because it is part of the Time Machine back up. Why can't I manage my computer files as I would like??
Also once you import pictures into Aperture or videos into iMovie, good luck having access to the initial files you imported. It seems once these programs get hold of your files they aren't accessible to you any more. I don't understand that! Anyway can anyone help me get the files I want off my iMac and onto my external Seagate hard drive?
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My sister is trying to rename a file on an external hard drive...
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ITunes can't find my external hard drive music

Hello, our computer crashed recently and I have restored Windows Vista and iTunes. All of our music is stored on an external hard drive (drive I). There is a main "iTunes music" folder, and then there are a ton of folders in there that are named by music artist. I went to iTunes and changed the preferences to the I drive iTunes music folder, but it will not import the music. If I go to "computer" and open the individual songs, they will play on iTunes. Please tell me I don't have to go in and click on every single song; there are thousands of them. How do I get my songs back in the iTunes library? Any help is appreciated.

Hi, I'm sorry, I don't have an answer, just to be clear immediately, but I do have the same problem and I'm looking for an answer as well.
Because of a problem with the computer I had to re-install everything yesterday. Also my music is on a separate disk, not on the computer itself. I forgot to save or copy the separate iTunes-library-document, because I never use the bloody file, I only use iTunes and sometimes I copy something from the G:\-drive (with the yellow folders with the names of the artists) to the H:\-drive to back-up my music.
So my music is all there, all 60 days of music, so a h e l l of a lot, but I don't know how to get to open everything as one big action, instead of one by one which will be weeks of work. To be clear: because of the re-installment I downloaded iTunes again. The music is for sure on the G:\-drive.
I googled my problem of course, but then problems turn up like people who don't know how to install music on their iPod and stuff, but that's not what my problem is.
Just like Lauren & Mikes mom I changed in 'Preferences' the C:\-drive (the computer says C:-drive automatically) to the G:\-drive, but no action was undertaken by the computer. Of course I tried it several times. In vain.
I don't understand why I can't find the solution by googling this problem. I'm sure Lauren & Mike's mom and I aren't the only ones having this problem...
Thanks in advance for an answer.
Message was edited by: Majesty
Message was edited by: Majesty

How do you resize existing partitions on an external hard-drive without deleting their contents?

Hi, I've got an external hard drive (1 GB Western digital) Which I bought with a view to both storage and time-machine functions.
Initially, I partitioned the hard drive such that I had 750 GB for the time-machine segment, and 250 GB for the storage segment.
Now that my storage is approaching the 250 GB limit, and my time machine is only taking up 80 of the alloted 750 GB, I want to transfer some of that space across so that I'll have more room for storage.
When attempting this on disk utility, I can reduce the size of the time machine partition, but I am unable to increase the size of the storage partition.
Can someone please advise what I should do to sort this out without deleting the contents of each partition.
Regards,
Josh

Well, this is not easily answered. You can shrink existing partitions in order to add additional ones. But in order to add space from one partition to another that can only be done by first removing the lower partition first. If that partition has data, then it will be lost. Unfortunately, Disk Utility cannot manipulate partitions in place. You need a third-party utility for that, iPartition 3.4.1.
Now with that said I'll pass on a bit of advice. Do not us your Time Machine backup drive for extra storage. External storage and backups should be kept on separate drives. I suggest you get a separate drive for your storage or Time Machine backups.
If you use Disk Utility you can shrink your Time Machine partition, but the only way to put that space in another partition is to first delete the storage partition, then recreate it with a larger capacity.

Use existing external hard-drive music library with new laptop.

I moved my I-tunes library to an external hard-drive on my previous laptop. That worked fine. After a hard disk crash I am now configuring a new laptop (installing I-tunes) and I would like to keep my music on the external hard drive: How do I proceed?

Depends on whether you had your complete library (including the iTunes database) on the external drive, or just your media files and folders. If the former, you can just hold down shift as you start iTunes, and when you get this is prompt:
click on Choose Library... then navigate to and select the iTunes Library.itl file on the external drive.
In the other case - and assuming that you can't copy or retrieve the database file from your old machine or a backup of it, create a new library in X:\iTunes (where "X" is the drive letter of your external drive, make sure the settings in Edit > Preferences > Advanced are as follows:
and then use File > Add Folder to Library... to add your existing media folders.

Why is external hard drive freezing on iTunes upload?

I have been having problems with uploading music from an external hard drive into iTunes for about a month and I do not know what to do. I recently purchased a HP Envy 15 running Windows 7 64bit home edition. I decided to scrub my iTunes library and start new with uploading selected CDs and purchases from both Apple and Amazon onto the external hard driv e (Western Digital 1TB). Putting the music on the external hard drive is not an issue as I see that all of my music files are there. However, when it comes to adding all my music folders into iTunes the problem starts. The upload will get to song 200-300 and both the hard drive and program will freeze. When I first purchased the laptop I tried the same thing and connecting my iPod classic to the laptop and had the same issue causing my whole computer to freeze following by the blue screen of death. Concerned, I sent my laptop to HP to fix thinking my USB drives were bad. I just received back a week ago and I am having a repeat issue minus the blue screen of death. Again, putting my CDs onto the external hard drive was not a problem at all, but when I want to add my Amazon MP3 files, other iTunes music and other folders my external hard drive freezes.
I have my external plugged into the USB 3.0 port while attempting the upload and not sure if this is the issue. I am also unsure if enough power is getting to the hard drive during upload as I have read about this being an issue for some users. Can anyone provide any assistance on this? I am trying to avoid putting all 5000-7000 songs on my main drive to get my music back on my iPod and find this super annoying. Any assistance would be great, thanks.

Nope, one of the selling points of the drive was that it came ready to work with both Mac and Windows (the product description says there is an NTFS drive installed for use on Mac). No hacking or installing on my part.
But I think I figured it out. Apparentely, Mavericks comes installed with something that does not allow it to write NTFS no matter what (well, unless you go through a whole bunch of technical stuff to rewrite the software). My old MacBook was Leopard.
I'll just reformat the external hard drive for Mac, and if I ever need to use it on a Windows, I'll install HFS+ Explorer on the Windows. Oh well.

Why does external hard drive have to wake up?

I understand that in Finder if I want to look at a file then it might have to wake up my external hard drive.
Why is it the case that when I perform a seemingly unrelated action - such as bringing up a dialogue box in Photoshop, viewing developer tools in Chrome, or playing the next track of a file sitting on a folder on my desktop - forces the external drive to wake up, and forces me to wait until the wakeup whilst it does so?
Yes, I want the drive to sleep as much as possible. It's only there for time machine backups which I rely on, and the less the drive is spinning the lower the chances are of the drive having an issue. So turning off "sleep when inactive" is NOT a solution.

Not sure why but I had the same issue when I was using FW drives and ML. Later I upgraded to Mavericks and changed over to USB3 drive with my new Mini and now no longer have that issue. Must be something between the OS and the type of drive but not sure what the critical component is.

Why is external hard drive read-only on one Mac, but read/write on another?

I have a Seagate Backup Plus Portable Drive. I bought it to be compatible with both Windows and Mac, which it currently is. It works just fine on my PC and my MacBook. However, recently, I bought a MacBook Pro. The Seagate drive shows up as read only on the MacBook Pro, though it is read/write on my MacBook. It's formatted NTFS, yes, but it already works on my MacBook. What's going on here?

Nope, one of the selling points of the drive was that it came ready to work with both Mac and Windows (the product description says there is an NTFS drive installed for use on Mac). No hacking or installing on my part.
But I think I figured it out. Apparentely, Mavericks comes installed with something that does not allow it to write NTFS no matter what (well, unless you go through a whole bunch of technical stuff to rewrite the software). My old MacBook was Leopard.
I'll just reformat the external hard drive for Mac, and if I ever need to use it on a Windows, I'll install HFS+ Explorer on the Windows. Oh well.

After moving my iTunes and iPhoto libraries to an external hard drive and deleting the originals i found i still had no space on my mac.help

i moved my itunes and iphoto libraries to an external hard drive to free up space on my mac.
after i had moved them and checked they could be found i trashed the originals and checked again that the could be found on the external hdd.
all seemed to be ok.
when i checked the disc utility it did not show i has made any more free space than i had before.
any help please as i am loving tje mac but i am still quite new to it.

Did you empty Trash?

Why are external hard drives and similar continually self-ejecting under Yosemite?

When are Apple going to sort out the problem of external hard disk drives and other similar devices continually self-ejecting under Yosemite. This is a problem I have had ever since I upgraded my 21.5" iMac from Mavericks to Yosemite last year, and I when I upgraded to a 27" iMac last November with Yosemite pre-installed the same issue occurs. I cannot even update my TomTom SatNav because it keeps ejecting while the update is trying to process. I cannot use a WD external drive for backup purposes, and even memory sticks eject. This problem has only started with Yosemite and I do not believe I am the only one experiencing it as it has been aired on the communities website previously. I wish Apple would tackle this problem and issue a Yosemite update that resolves the issue. My present Yosemite version no.is 10.10.3.

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.
Feedback
Or you can use your Apple ID to register with this site and go the Apple BugReporter. Supposedly you will get an answer if you submit feedback.
Feedback via Apple Developer

Why does external hard drive show as "volume" below Hard Drive files? LR5|Yosemite 10.10.1

Why is a new folder, i.e. ext. drive, Why is a new folder, i.e. ext. drive, not showing in LR5? New folder shows as "volume" below Hard Drive files. Is this new to Maverik10.10.1? Worked normally in Maverick. showing in LR5? New folder shows as "volume"below Hard Drive files. Is this new to Maverik10.10.1? Worked normally in Maverick.

What happened is finder is as I described. A pale blue Volumes folder,
grayed out which I could not open in Finder. I"ll attach the screen shot of
the LR folders here. I did put in the original post; don't know why it was
not seen.
Ran the command in terminal and it did not change anything. The command WAS
in the terminal screen--- when I check now it is not. see screen shot
BTW, don't have drives C,G,H, J,L. these 'drives' have a few misc folders
in them. not sure when or how they got into the folders left frame
really appreciate the assistance. hope this helps us get closer
neal
On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 12:13 PM, robgendreau <[email protected]>

External hard drive music folder

While upgrading to iTunes 6.0.2 I must have done something wrong. iTunes kept giving me the message "The song "xxxxx..." could not be used because the original file could not be found". I have about 10,000 songs on my external HD. I followed the directions on moving your iTunes music folder as suggested by the Apple info article. I created a new folder, selected the Keep iTunes music folder organized, consolidated, etc. However, many of my songs did not copy over the new folder. If an album had, for instance, 14 songs in its folder, only 6 or 7 songs copied over. Some of the folders that contained an artist's complete album / cd did not copy over at all. I went through my previous music folder and the new one I created and copied everything over manually. I hope I got all the music. Now that I hope that all my music is in one place / folder on my external HD, is there anything I can do to get iTunes on my mac mini to recognize the path to the external HD and recognize all the songs there?

Main Menu>File>Add to Library...?

Why my external hard drive won't work now

Hi guys,
I have a 500gig USB external harddrive. Today I tried to connect to my macbook mid 2010 and it keeps beeping. When I hear it close to it, it sounds like it start to work for a few seconds and then failed over and over again.
I have connected it with my harddrive before. Plus I have upgrade my system to 10.8 golden master and upgraded my memory from 2 gig(2*1gig) to 5gig(1*1gig and 1*4gig) I don't think that's the reason. I've been using my mac with the power adapter all the time. Tried reset my SMC.
Thanks!

I do not know what a sdd is, but certainly it is a normal Harddisk.
If you have TM on it, open TM preferences and reallocate this disk under "select disk" to TM, check under "options" that this disk is on the exclusions list. And in Disk Utility check how much free space you have on this disk (500GB is quickly filled with TM, and not always it condenses correctly).

How do i get itunes 11 to stop adding music played from external hard drive to itunes library

I use itunes 11 to play music from my external hard drive and when i am finished using the hard drive and disconnect it the artist and songs appear in the itunes libary and when i click on it to play them it cannot locate the file and i assume this is becuse under the advanced prefrences tab i unchecked the auomaticly add played music to itunes library. I do not want my external hard drive music to be added to itunes library which at this point it does not but it is still showing the music in the library even though it cannot be played this is very fustrating please help. how do i get the artist and songs played from the external hardrive from appering in the itunes library.

Do you have a working copy of the library anywhere? The key file is called iTunes Library.itl and normally exists inside <User's Music>\iTunes. This is the file that knows what is in your library and each of the playlists, and holds ratings, play counts etc. Changing the media folder path in preferences tells iTunes where you'd like it to store media in future. It doesn't magically connect iTunes to any media that might already be there, or fix links to media that has been moved, or make it pick up a non-existent library file. If the worst comes to it you will need to import the media into the new empty library.
See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device if you have any of these to recover ratings, play stats and playlists, and to associate your device with the new library.
tt2

Why is external hard drive music deleting?

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