2. pc-audio
  3. 1217423539

How Do I Point iTunes to use my backup ext drive?

I use iTunes on a Mac Mini with 2 external 500GB disk drives. I use one of the external disk drives strictly as a backup. All I do to backup my iTunes information is I copy the complete contents of the iTUNES folder on my primary drive to the backup drive by the drag & drop (copy) feature. As you Mac users know, the iTunes folder contains 4 sub folders with the Music Library, Album artwork and XML file.

Well the dreaded day has come and I suffered a hard disk crash. No problem as my backup disk contains all of my needed iTunes files. However when I try to access my playlists, iTunes tells me it can't find the song title. I can change the location of the song title to the backup drive and it finds it successfully, but with over 4,000 songs ripped I can't imagine that I have to do this for every song. I changed the Advanced Preferences in iTunes to point to the backup location, but I think this is only to tell iTunes where to rip new music.

How do I tell iTunes to reference the backup drive so that it can find my playlists and music files?

Thanks in advance,
Brian ...
cycles2
istanbulu
291 posts
 
As I said in an earlier PC Audio thread earlier this week...

This is a good starting point. Lots of beginner's nitty gritty. I found it helpful when I began my iTunes' quest.

http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1220425&seqNum=01

Also, iTunes help is very helpful!
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
4,163 posts
 
You need to give the backup drive the exact same path name as the dead drive. Once you set up your next backup drive you would be better off physically separating the drives as much as possible.
sufentanil's avatar
sufentanil
776 posts
 
I haven't tried this, but I would imagine that you could go into the Unix terminal and create a symbolic link ("ln -s ...") from the music library that iTunes is expecting to the external drive.

Michael
Post removed 
rel
119 posts
 

I believe the solution is fairly simple.

First, quit iTunes (if it is currently running). Then, relaunch iTunes while holding down the "Option" key.

You should be presented with a dialog box that reads:

Choose iTunes Library

iTunes needs a library to continue. You may choose an existing iTunes library or create a new one.

Click on the "Choose Library" button, which will allow you to navigate to the iTunes folder on your backup drive. Be sure you choose the actual iTunes folder, and not one of the folders contained within the iTunes folder, such as "iTunes Music."

Assuming your backup was current, you should be back in business, with everything working exactly as it did before your disc crashed.

Once you're satisfied that all is well, create a NEW backup of your entire iTunes folder on a backup drive, just as you did before.

Good luck!
-
More to discover