iTunes + Backup harddrives disaster

[reykjavik]

Ok, so I migrated all my media to a backup harddrive which of course, filled up. Then I got a 2nd backup hd which has ample space. But for some reason, when I first got it, although I migrated all the data over to it, I never got iTunes to point to it. Instead, I just started adding new stuff to the 2nd HD. Now iTunes is reading media off of two HD's (the old media on the old hd, and the new media on the 2nd hd - except for the Music Store purchased which is still being downloaded to the old hd).

What I want to do is have iTunes read everything off of the 2nd HD

Can anyone set me up with a step by step on how to handle this migration/re-pointing? I know stuff like this sounds simple but ends up being very tricky and time consuming so I don't want to jump into this without a plan. I want to end up with iTunes using solely the 2nd back up hd, and the first back up wiped clean so I can use it as a backup hd for my imac.

 

[aspro]

Are you looking for "consolidate library..." it's in the advanced menu. You can find out more by searching for "consolidate" in the iTunes help.

 

[reykjavik]

The problem with that solution is that iTunes will only compare duplicates after the two hd's are merged. Thus, when I attempted to consolidate, it said my 2nd hd didn't have enough space to complete the task because it wanted to take my entire backuphd and move it to the my 2nd hd (even though a majority of the stuff are exactly the same files).

It seems like my only option is to get a 3rd party software to compare and sync the two hd's (which for some reason never works and always ends up deleting everything) or simply go through the old hd and find every album/song/video myself and phyically drag and drop each one.

any suggestions?

 

[reykjavik]

ok, I finally figured out what my real problem is. Forget all the HD drive stuff.... my question is:

is there any way to get iTunes, on a mass scale (as oppose to one file at a time) to point to a file on a nother HD?

Its easy for me to merge the two hd's, whats posing to be the biggest problem, is that iTunes is still looking to the old HD to play everything. How do I change that en mass?

 

[aspro]

ok, I finally figured out what my real problem is. Forget all the HD drive stuff.... my question is:

is there any way to get iTunes, on a mass scale (as oppose to one file at a time) to point to a file on a nother HD?

Its easy for me to merge the two hd's, whats posing to be the biggest problem, is that iTunes is still looking to the old HD to play everything. How do I change that en mass?

The only thing I can think of is writing a script to go through iTunesMusicLibrary.xml and change all instances of file://localhost/path/to/old/hd/ to file://localhost/path/to/new/hd/ after copying it all across. Though thats just from glancing at my file and not from experience.

 

[crazycat]

Here is a simple way to do so:

- Copy the iTunes folder which is located in your Music folder (defult)
- Past it were you want it to read from (external HD in your case)
- Open itunes, preferences then click the advance tab. Here under general you can pick your itunes music folder location. just pick the location were you pasted the itunes folder.

It should work, i have tryed this some times ago to make my MacPro's itunes run on teh 2nd hard drive. Make sure to make a copy of your itunes libary just in case.

Post any questions you might have here and i will try my best to answer them.