Moving itunes and Files to External Drive

[sharktooth]

hi all,

originally i had my itunes and all the song files on my internal 'c' drive. when i bought an external drive i thought it would make sense to move it all there, which is my 'i' drive.

now it looks like all i have really done is duplicated itunes and all the files onto my 'i' drive, which obviously has not freed up any space on my 'c' drive. now, i had the thought of just deleting everything related from the 'c' drive, but the problem is that itunes on my 'i' drive, still searches for the songs on my 'c' drive.

basically, how do i tell my itunes program that the songs are now in my 'i' drive? am i gonna have to go through each individual song on my itunes 'i' drive and tell it to search for it in there, rather than the 'c' drive? hope not, cos it'll take yonks.

thanks in advance

[baklogic]

I have not tried with itunes files, but basically it seems you may not have copied all the file attributes, or,created a shortcut, rather than a copy.
I suggest you go to tools,view, tick show hidden files, then copy to the backup drive

[sharktooth]

thanks or your input. the files have been copied, but the main problem is how do i tell itunes to look in the 'i' drive for the songs, instead of the 'c' drive, so that i can delete everything related from my 'c' drive? at the end of the day, it's only looking where it was first told to look when it was originally set up on my 'c' drive.

[baklogic]

Have you copied the whole itunes Folder? if you set this as your default, these should be in your music folder,- I suggest you copy the entire folder, including all files and sub folders . Programs like these have all settings saved to that folder.

[sharktooth]

yeah, i'm sure that's what i done. the problem though is that it has copied the 'route' (or whatever it is) to the songs as being from the 'c' drive, so that's where it still goes to look for them.

i may be looking at this the wrong way. maybe just be best to wipe everything from my 'c' and 'i' drive that has any ipod/itunes/music files, install itunes again just on the 'i' drive and copy the songs back from my ipod???

[baklogic]

With copying, sometimes, if you drag and drop , it merely gives you the shortcut.
If you delete the copies- not the originals, and start again, show hidden file, click on iTUNES FOLDER, CLICK COPY, THEN PASTE TO WHERE YOU WANT TO BACKUP, the folder will be on the backup, and any files should correctly reference.If you have saved music, elsewhere, you should do the same with them.
Beyond this point, perhaps someone else on majorgeeks might be able to tell you more, someone who uses iTunes.

[sharktooth]

thanks mate, but it seems like itunes is a law unto itself. i've had loads of problems with it in the past, but when it came to updating my mp3 player, i couldn't find anything better. i now have a program for copying songs from my ipod to itunes (as it won't normally let you do that), so i think i'll go back to my last idea and start again. problem is you lose all your playlists and ratings and stuff, which is a bit of pain in the arse, but hey ho...

[havalina]

i'm no expert, but i've been trying to do the same thing. i think you have to change where itunes thinks your library is stored, which is located under edit -> preferences -> advanced. also, i've read somewhere that on macs if you hold the option key when itunes is loading it will allow you to search for a new library, i haven't tried this as i don't have a mac, though i would guess there is an equivalent button i'm just not aware of.

[BILLMCC66]

it does seem very strange, i use media monkey and did the same thing all i did was click my computer/programs and the right click the folder media monkey select "move to" and away it went i then deleted the leftovers in drive C.

it runs perfectly