how do i make iTunes open music from an external HD?

Question

my powerbooks HD had less than 1GB left so i bought an external HD and would now like to have my music stored on the external HD. The problem: I copied the music onto the external HD and after deleting the original files (luckily i only tried it out with a couple of songs) iTunes says it can't find the original file. if i locate the song on the external HD, it can play the song but i am not willing to do this for all of my nearly 7'000 songs! what folders/files must i copy to the external HD, what do i leave in the orginal iTunes folder and how do i do it? Help much wanted, thank you!!!!

i don't want to backup, i want to have the music stored on my external HD and have iTunes access the external HD to play the music (of course only possible when it's connected. I moved the songs to the HD now and created a new library... but now my playlists are gone and i can't organize the library by date created (date added to iTunes) anymore (which was helpful...)

Answer 1

first, copy all the music to your external hd. Then delete the originals (if youve already done so, great; it was a bit ambiguous)
then press [control] [a] in your music library to select all the files. then delete them. what this is doing is deleting itune's path to find those songs, not deleting the songs themselves. (if it asks to move the music to the recycle bin, press no). then go to:
edit > preferences > advanced > itunes music folder location

and change that file path to where all the music is on your external drive.

if you need to, go to:
file > add folder to library
and add your music folder on the external hd

after doing this, your itunes library will have all your songs but the file paths to locate them will be updated to their new locations on the external hd.
hope that helps

EDIT: I don't know of a way to keep the date added and to preserve your playlists. both depend on the song's file paths

Answer 2

iTunes is looking for the songs in the old location on your powerbook.. You can either 'look' for the songs for iTunes when it asks you and point it to the one on the external OR you can drag the songs from your external you copied back into iTunes and it should show up as new songs you just added.

Answer 3

LOL lucky you didn't transfer all your songs. Read this on iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748

You should make a backup of your music media, not the actual songs.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302392

You can move the few songs from your external back to your iTunes Library, just reverse the steps you used to move them.....I think. It all depends on where you moved them from, iTunes Library or ~/Music/iTunes folder.

Answer 4

Hi. I have used the 'Backup' utility in iTunes to store all of my purchased (.mp4) files and they played back OK. Maybe you could do a backup to the external drive and see if that works.

Answer 5

i verify out the area as "ok, My track is THERE, purely not the place i prefer it". i've got had this take place with an 800 track library (not 40,000) whether it would be comparable. I bumped off all the track out of my iTunes library. I chosen all the track (administration+A) and deleted. while it asked if i prefer to maintain report or flow to trash I made helpful I picked "shop report". that is going to eliminate them out of your library yet won't delete the documents. flow to strategies>more desirable and uncheck "replica documents to iTunes track folder while including to library". Then flow to report>upload to Library and click the folder that contains track.