Itunes & External Hard Drive Help Please !

[jason44mag]

Hi All

Hopefully this will be my last post for help on ipods !!

Basically ive got itunes stored on my pc, i want to add an external hard drive and store the music there.

Can someone run through it with me how to do this & end up with the following:

Itunes software on the pc but the music stored on the external hard drive & the space currently used on my pc for these music files freed up.

Simplest way possible please, would you recommend deleting itunes & files from pc the starting from scratch?

Thanks in advance.

Jason

I haven't done this myself...but wouldn't you just have to delete the songs from the library on the pc [not hard drive] and once you have moved all your songs to the ext hd then just redirect the search for the songs through itunes to the new hd. I'm sure that's all you'd have to do, but I'm not sure if you want to keep the data collated such as play count, last played date etc etc

[limegreenzx]

There are numerous ways to achieve this. Personally I would -

1. Change your itunes library location "itunes>edit>preferences>advance" then change your itunes music folder location. Browse to the location of your external disk and create a folder. I would suggest you use an obvious folder name such as "itunes music".

2.Copy all the music to the new location using the itunes consolidate library option "itunes>advanced>consolidate_library". This will copy all off your music to your external disk.

3. Once you are happy all the music is in the new location (you can right click a song and use file location to check). You will now have to use windows explorer to delete your old library. If you're familar with the DOS "del" command you may find it quicker to use that.

[jason44mag]

Thanks limegreen, which files do i need to delete via explorer, or more to the point which do i keep!

Thanks again

[Soundgeek]

Hey there,

You can change the location of where itunes saves the music to by going into edit>preferences>advanced>general and changing the itunes music folder location. For eg. from C: (your existing drive) to say D: (your external drive or whatever other letter windows mounts it as)

I think you will still need to move the itunes music folder onto the new drive. Just Cut it from the old location (usually my music) and paste where you want it on the external hdd (the same as where you told it to save it to above)

If when this happens, itunes fails to play the songs due to the change in file location, delete all the songs in itunes and then re ad them from the location you moved the itunes folder to (File>add folder to library> then select from external drive)

I hope this makes some sense, it sounds confusing even when i read it!

[limegreenzx]

Jason

If you are not familar with Windows Explorer it may be better just to leave them there. However, if you are happy that the music has been copied to your external disk and you need the space. You could always disconnect your external disk temporarily to see if the music disappears from your itunes library and reconnect to make sure they re-appear to double check - you'll need to select a song to play.

Go to the "Start" button, select "My Documents" , double click "My music" then "iTunes" and finally "iTunes Music". This is the default location that iTunes normally stores your music.

[jason44mag]

Thanks again, i just didnt want to delete everything from my pc that looks like itunes then not be able to launch it when the files are on the external drive if you know what i mean

[jason44mag]

if i delete this location my documents my music etc, will this free the space currently taken up on my pc from the cds i have imported?

Also after ive changed the location of my folder to external hard drive when i want to transfer a cd to itunes will the cds files go straight to the external harddrive?

[Soundgeek]

If you have copied the music to the external hard drive location then you could delete the itunes music folder that is in my music on your internal hard drive and this would free up disk space on your computer.

If you have changed the save location in itunes to the external hard drive then all subsequent cd imports will be saved directly to the external hard drive.

[jason44mag]

thanks soundgeek, is the my music folder the one that takes up all the drive space or is there another folder i can get rid off? basically trying to regain space on my pc.

[Soundgeek]

Inside the my music folder there will be the itunes folder. You could just delete the whole my music folder if you wanted or, you could go into the folder and delete the itunes folder which is inside. (Which is probably the advisable option)

That should help free up your drive! (Unless of course the space problems are more related to digital photos or movie files, in which case you could always copy them over to the external drive as well!)

[jason44mag]

Thanks again

[GeoffWork]

I have just been doing this myself and one thing I would strongly recommend is that if you make new folders identify them as new so you know which is which. I ended up with several folders called iTunes music on different partitions and the external so the first thing to do is label them iTunes music C, D E F or whatever. It saves having several folders with different contents, although c'onsolidate library' should find them all it does not always do so.

[Lester]

Originally Posted by Soundgeek

Inside the my music folder there will be the itunes folder. You could just delete the whole my music folder if you wanted or, you could go into the folder and delete the itunes folder which is inside. (Which is probably the advisable option)

Do not delete the My Music or iTunes folder because you will deleting the .xml and .itl library files also. Even though your music is on the external drive, the library data files remain on your PC in the iTunes folder. You should only delete the actual songs ie. the "iTunes Music" folder.

[jason44mag]

Thanks to you all esp soundgeek & limegreen, done the deed followed the instructions now ive got a spacious pc & a new seagate brimming with cool tunes.

Big thanks again, where else would you get this kind of advice !!