itunes file scan?

[iamthepinky]

hi everybody,

i recently purchased a 1TB external hard drive in hopes of transferring my very large itunes library (which itself is on two hard drives, the internal and an additional external drive) onto it from my 2ghz MacBook Pro. I am following the iTunes instructions on doing this and using the 'consolidate library' function in iTunes to do this as it's the only way i can retain all of my play info, ratings, etc. Every time i've tried, I've gotten the same message somewhere along the transfer: "could not complete. the disk cannot be read or written to." after testing to make sure that my drive wasn't defective, i came to the conclusion that some of my corrupt files are preventing this transfer.

the problem is that I have a HUGE number of files and don't have a way to find the corrupt ones. On the apple help page, some guy mentioned a way to find them using the 'ditto' function on the console but gave no more info. does anybody know a way i could do this? any recommendations for a good, free file-scanning program that can single out these files if not? thanks for your help!

 

[BlueRevolution]

What format is the hard drive? I'd bet money it's formatted NTFS, which Mac OS X can read but not write to. If you're only using the drive with your Mac, I'd suggest formatting it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with Disk Utility. (If you already have any data on the drive it will be deleted.)

 

[ChrisA]

the problem is that I have a HUGE number of files and don't have a way to find them. On the apple help page, some guy mentioned a way to find them using the 'ditto' function on the console but gave no more info. does anybody know a way i could do this? any recommendations for a good, free file-scanning program that can single out these files if not? thanks for your help!

You can move the library by simply dragging it to whereever you like. iTumes will complain that it can't find it and ask you to browse to it. You are making this to hard.

What is it you want to find? If you are looking for a specific file "Spotlight" is good at finding stuff. If you want to make sure you don't have "corrupted" files then go to Disk Utility and run the "verify" function of the partition you want to scan.

 

[iamthepinky]

@bluerevolution: i formatted to extended os journaled prior to the file transfer.

@ChrisA: the problem with dragging everything over manually is fourfold: 1) the corrupt files still will not transfer, and 2) itunes only corrects one file at a time when you redirect. i have 25000 mp3 files; this is not feasible. 3) i want itunes to keep my files organized. that is why the 'consolidate library' function is ideal. 4) half of my library is not in the itunes library at all, but on a separate external drive that i also want to move to the larger disk. i will try the 'verify' function though. Thanks!

 

[BlueRevolution]

@bluerevolution: i formatted to extended os journaled prior to the file transfer.

It would appear I owe you some money.

 

[Darth.Titan]

First of all, it sounds like a problem with your new external drive if it cannot be read or written to. I'd be experimenting with copying other files to and from the drive to see if the drive is the issue.

Secondly, Apple's instructions for relocating your iTunes Library are needlessly excessive.
1. Copy library to new drive.
2. Launch iTunes while holding down the option key
3. When prompted, browse to your newly relocated library files.

All done.

 

[iamthepinky]

well, the 'verify' function will not let me scan any of the files that i want to, so that's out.

again, i can't simply drag the library over because half of my library is not in the itunes folder. i am using the apple instructions because i want to consolidate all of my files into one iTunes folder without losing any of my ratings/play count information.

all i'm looking for is a way to find the corrupt files on my disk!

 

[BlueRevolution]

Well, to find corrupted files, open Disk Utility, select the drive in question, and click Verify Disk. I can't promise it'll come up with anything, but it's a good place to start.