iTunes can't locate files

[williamus]

Sorry if this has been dealt with before but I couldn't find anything.

I "tidied up" my music folders on my PC and now itunes "can't find" the files cos I've moved or renamed them them. I've got iTunes set to manually manage the transfer of files from PC to iPhone but I can't play anything on iTunes on my PC without ploughing through my music folders to locate it. This is a real pain and if I sync the iPhone I assume it'll lose all files on the iPhone. Everything is fine on the iPhone for now. Even Vista isn't this clumsy. Any ideas Guys?

[Butters]

Originally Posted by williamus

Sorry if this has been dealt with before but I couldn't find anything.

I "tidied up" my music folders on my PC and now itunes "can't find" the files cos I've moved or renamed them them. I've got iTunes set to manually manage the transfer of files from PC to iPhone but I can't play anything on iTunes on my PC without ploughing through my music folders to locate it. This is a real pain and if I sync the iPhone I assume it'll lose all files on the iPhone. Everything is fine on the iPhone for now. Even Vista isn't this clumsy. Any ideas Guys?

I presume all your music files are in the same location under the same high level folder structure??

I hate iTunes personally but have to use it due to my iPhone, but i had a similar situation and found the quickest route that i could understand was re-create the library again.

1. So press and hold the shift key and double click the iTunes icon on desktop to start iTunes (takes more time than you would expect so keep that shift button pressed)
   
2. iTunes will now ask you to select a library or create a new one
   
3. Create a new one
   
4. Set it up to point at where all your files are now residing

There are no doubt other options, but this worked for me.

[williamus]

Butters

Thanks for the tip and I'll use it if plan A fails. Thinking about it today I realised that as I do a complete file backup on an external HD every month, I should have the file heirarchy as it was before I messed about, changed the names etc. If I'm right I should just be able to put everything back the way it was complete with artwork etc... let you know how I get on.

Cheers