dredey
12-20-2008, 10:04 PM
i have my itunes linked to my harddrive
i disconnect it , and i add songs to itunes. so they arent on my hardrive
i plug my hd back in and i want those songs on my hardrive
i consolidate my library but it copies my entire folder over that on my computer
(i have the same songs on both folders i didnt delete from my hardrive)
what can ido
S2_Mac
12-21-2008, 11:26 AM
Happy to help, but yo've got explain what this means: "i consolidate my library but it copies my entire folder over that on my computer" What folder? And does "copies [a folder] over that on my computer" mean that a folder is being replaced (overwritten) during consolidation...or what?
In the meantime, a little info. iTunes doesn't really "link" to any specific drive or folder.... When you set an "iTunes Music folder location," you're just telling iTunes to use certain folder as a default location for writing files that iTunes creates: store purchases/rentals, imported CDs, and converted files. (And, if the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" pref is checked, music files that are added to iTunes will be written to that default folder.)
Whenever the folder you designate as your "iTunes Music" folder is not available for iTunes to use -- say, when you point to an external drive and that drive is not connected to your computer -- iTunes will fall back on its built-in default, the "iTunes Music" folder inside the "iTunes" folder inside your user account's Music folder (My Music on XP, Music on Vista and Macs). Sounds like that's what's happening with you -- when it can't "see" the external drive, iTunes is using its default on the boot drive.
To consolidate any files that wound up on the boot drive over to the external drive, you must first give iTunes a chance to "see" the external drive. That means that before re-connecting the external drive, you must first quit iTunes -- if you don't quit iTunes, it won't be able to see the drive. Once that's done, go into iTunes prefs and re-set the "iTunes Music folder location" pref to the external; at that point you should be good to go.