A different sort of iTunes question.

[TylerDurden12]

My PC's hard drive is rapidly approaching its capacity due to my ever-increasing music collection. My plan is to buy an external hard drive and transfer all of my music files over to it. Obviously, when I do this, iTunes will not be able to "find" any of the songs since their location will change. Will I need to add them all to iTunes again or is there a way to link/shortcut the old and new locations?

Thanks in advance.

[iOLD]

My PC's hard drive is rapidly approaching its capacity due to my ever-increasing music collection. My plan is to buy an external hard drive and transfer all of my music files over to it. Obviously, when I do this, iTunes will not be able to "find" any of the songs since their location will change. Will I need to add them all to iTunes again or is there a way to link/shortcut the old and new locations?

Thanks in advance.

In order to do this. First you will transfer the music to your hard drive. Then remove songs from your library. (Select all and press delete)

Then go to "File" tab and select Add folder to library. Find the new place where you have your music located at and select open. This will add all of your music to iTunes.

[TylerDurden12]

I figured that's what I would have to do. I was just hoping there was another way. It just scares me to wipe out my entire iTunes library. I know they are still there, I've just been reading the horror stories of people losing a third or half of their songs. Anyway, thanks for the help.

[admin]

Well when you use Windows to copy your songs over. It's just like copying a file from one location to another. It should not loose any of the data from the file.

You will not loose any of your songs, but it is likely that you will loose your playlist entries. Look at the image I have attached.

[TylerDurden12]

I guess what also worried me was whether or not I would have to redo all the organizing of the songs into their albums (stuff that wasn't ripped from their orignal CD). I spent a lot of time on this and I just didn't want to have to do it again. However, I just reinstalled iTunes 6 and it really wasn't that bad when I added all the songs back onto it. Most of the changes and organization that I had done was still there, just some duplicates that I guess I didn't realize were in the folder of music file. So anyway, thanks again for the input. This is very friendly forum and your knowledge is greatly appreciated.

[admin]

I guess what also worried me was whether or not I would have to redo all the organizing of the songs into their albums (stuff that wasn't ripped from their orignal CD). I spent a lot of time on this and I just didn't want to have to do it again. However, I just reinstalled iTunes 6 and it really wasn't that bad when I added all the songs back onto it. Most of the changes and organization that I had done was still there, just some duplicates that I guess I didn't realize were in the folder of music file. So anyway, thanks again for the input. This is very friendly forum and your knowledge is greatly appreciated.

All of the song information such as name of the album, artist name, album art are directly added into the song so that will be not lost.