O.K., now what?

Hi-my last visit was in October 2006. Hope you can answer a question for me. I installed an external 500 GB hard drive (Seagate FreeAgent) and backed up all my/our music (itunes), pictures and videos. Can I delete these now from the hard drive. My goal was to to free up space since we're almost tapped up. I have WindowsXp. IF my husband clicks on itunes will his music be there?

 

Your music will still show as there in iTunes however if you go to play it nothing will happen. The easiest thing to do is delete everything out of your iTunes library after you finish backing up all of the files and reimport your library off of the external drive. This can be time consuming depending on how large of a library you have. But it works.

 

Lanfear, I am scared to death. I have iTunes 7 with an "Export Library" option under "File"; if I go in and choose my new D:directory, will it carry over everything? I have been reading about the "itl" versus the "xml" files. I understand the concept of damaging the "itl" file to trick iTunes in rebuilding the "xml". Whew!!! This makes me nervous. When I choose the Export Library option the new window says "save as xml". Does that mean I am moving ALL the paths to the new D: directory-- does iTunes automatically rebuild the library? Please excuse my inexperience, but I have been very patience in reading up on this. It doesn't mean I am an expert. I just don't won't to ruin my husband's iTunes Library. Thank you in advance.

 

i saw someone (post here), that they moved all thier music to their external h/d, and it wouldn't work anymore. i'd make a copy of the music (if possible), and try it (make sure you get your licences, etc). if it were me, i'd make a copy of the music pics (ie - another h/d, or maybe a burn dvd's), this way you have a "backup" of your data, in case of h/d failure. anyway, g/l - sos