Transferring iTunes library and music which is on a different partition to new iMac?

[bobright]

So I've come across a lot of transfer iTunes and music from a PC to a Mac guides but mostly are if you have your music managed by iTunes and its in your "iTunes Music" folder. How do I go about it if my music isn't in that folder and is on a seperate partition on my windows PC (e.g D:/Bob's Music/Jazz), how do I transfer it along with my iTunes ratings/playlists over to the Mac?

Could I copy the iTunes folder with the library files and all that then simply drag and drop to the Mac? If I do this though, the songs in my library wouldn't play though right--as they would be pointing to the directory where they once were on my partition? Is there any way to point them to a new directory to where they are now once transferred over to the iMac?

Ughh this is really stressing me out as my iTunes library has took years to organize and setup and I hope I can preserve everything and transfer it over smoothly.

[Scrapula]

In the past, I've just copied the songs over to the new folders. I've gone from PC to Mac and back without any problems.

[bobright]

Originally Posted by Scrapula

In the past, I've just copied the songs over to the new folders. I've gone from PC to Mac and back without any problems.

If I do that though, iTunes as it is now is setup with my music in D:/Bobs Music/etc like I said when going to play songs they wouldn't play and I'd get an exclamation point on them wouldn't I? Also is it really that easy to preserve ratings/play counts just drag and drop the iTunes folder from windows over to Mac? Shouldn't I install iTunes on the Mac first or maybe it already is and then drag and drop the iTunes folder from my windows machine on over?

[hfg]

Originally Posted by bobright

If I do that though, iTunes as it is now is setup with my music in D:/Bobs Music/etc like I said when going to play songs they wouldn't play and I'd get an exclamation point on them wouldn't I? Also is it really that easy to preserve ratings/play counts just drag and drop the iTunes folder from windows over to Mac? Shouldn't I install iTunes on the Mac first or maybe it already is and then drag and drop the iTunes folder from my windows machine on over?

There are many articles describing how to move your iTunes library from a Google search which may offer some insight to what you are trying to do. These are the "preferred" methods and should work reliably for you.

However, I have had some success with simply dragging the entire iTunes music folder over to a new location, then using "optionKey-iTunes" to open iTunes where it will ask for the new library location, which I point to where I dragged it. Of course, the database is now wrong, so all the songs have ( ! ) on them and can't be played ... but I then get a pop-up dialog box offering to "find" a song, so I use the browser and locate the desired song and it starts playing. I then get another dialog box offering to "find more songs", and it uses the differential-address I provided for the first song to attempt to repair the entire data base.

This has usually worked for me ...

[bobright]

Originally Posted by hfg

There are many articles describing how to move your iTunes library from a Google search which may offer some insight to what you are trying to do. These are the "preferred" methods and should work reliably for you.

However, I have had some success with simply dragging the entire iTunes music folder over to a new location, then using "optionKey-iTunes" to open iTunes where it will ask for the new library location, which I point to where I dragged it. Of course, the database is now wrong, so all the songs have ( ! ) on them and can't be played ... but I then get a pop-up dialog box offering to "find" a song, so I use the browser and locate the desired song and it starts playing. I then get another dialog box offering to "find more songs", and it uses the differential-address I provided for the first song to attempt to repair the entire data base.

This has usually worked for me ...

I appreciate the response, this is the method I am going to try first before trying some of the harder methods on google where you run some type of script and change the directories via the XML file. In doing so the way above did your ratings/album art/playlists all remain intact for you?

This is that other method I came across in google, still don't fully understand it. I'm not sure if I change the XML file while on my windows machine or after I've copied my "iTunes Music" folder over to the iMac but if the above fails I'll try this way: http://hifiblog.com/past/2006/05/11/...music-library/