Itunes Music folder

[Ward]

I assumed Itunes was reading from my external hard drive, but I noticed it had copied all my music onto my PC in the itunes media folder. I deleted all the music from that folder, now everything has exclamation points next to it. I located the files but it only seems to do a few tracks then doesn't bother with the rest.

How do I get all the files back without having to copy all my tracks over to itunes again (over 37,000)? Is it possible? And how do I do it so it doesn't copy the tracks to my PCs hard drive?!

Thanks

 

[kornchild2002]

What you need to do is remove everything from your iTunes library. Then click on File and Preferences. Click on the Advanced tab and change the directory of your iTunes library so that it is in a specific folder on your external hard drive (the same folder housing all of your media content). Click OK. Then click on File and Add To Library... Select that folder and iTunes will add the files to your library. You are going to lose your play counts, ratings, playlists, etc. when doing this but it is an easy way to get all of your actual content back in your library. Otherwise you will have to manually go through and locate every file yourself.

It sounds like you opened iTunes without your hard drive plugged it once. That will cause iTunes to relocate the default directory of your iTunes library back to its default setting (under My Music). Always make sure that your portable hard drive is plugged in and fully recognized by your computer before opening iTunes if you want to have your library on the external hard drive, otherwise you will have to do this again.

 

[Ward]

What you need to do is remove everything from your iTunes library. Then click on File and Preferences. Click on the Advanced tab and change the directory of your iTunes library so that it is in a specific folder on your external hard drive (the same folder housing all of your media content). Click OK. Then click on File and Add To Library... Select that folder and iTunes will add the files to your library. You are going to lose your play counts, ratings, playlists, etc. when doing this but it is an easy way to get all of your actual content back in your library. Otherwise you will have to manually go through and locate every file yourself.

It sounds like you opened iTunes without your hard drive plugged it once. That will cause iTunes to relocate the default directory of your iTunes library back to its default setting (under My Music). Always make sure that your portable hard drive is plugged in and fully recognized by your computer before opening iTunes if you want to have your library on the external hard drive, otherwise you will have to do this again.

Ah yes I've noticed it spazz's out when the hard drive isn't plugged in. I'll make sure to check in future!! Thanks for your help!

 

[Ward]

I've come up against a problem. My sister and I both use iTunes. She syncs her music from the PCs hard drive and I use my external hard drive. We use separate playlists. Whats the way around that? Is it better to create my own account on the computer?

 

[kornchild2002]

You can create your own account on the computer or just have all of yours and her music in the same location, then just use playlists/smart playlists to separate it all. That is probably also an issue as to why your library was lost. She was using iTunes without the hard drive plugged in (as were you). iTunes can't do anything with a library if the physical files are missing.

Setting up your own account on the computer might not be a bad idea so you don't have to worry about her making sure the hard drive is plugged in before she starts using iTunes each and every time.

 

[Ward]

You can create your own account on the computer or just have all of yours and her music in the same location, then just use playlists/smart playlists to separate it all. That is probably also an issue as to why your library was lost. She was using iTunes without the hard drive plugged in (as were you). iTunes can't do anything with a library if the physical files are missing.

Setting up your own account on the computer might not be a bad idea so you don't have to worry about her making sure the hard drive is plugged in before she starts using iTunes each and every time.

It seems it could be the only option! She won't check to see if my hard drive was plugged in or not either way haha

Thanks