iTunes can't find Network Storage

got a firewall?

ya might have to physically go into it and select an IP range, or the specified device so the firewall will allow it to be seen by the pc.

after that you can try these:
open explorer and look for the NAS drive... find the folder within it which has the music files.

open one of the folders and right click onto it and choose 'open with' and select iTunes... if itunes is the only media player it should be listed and no need to pick open with, and simply pick play in itunes instead.

that should direct itunes to the drive.

if that isn't working... refer to my first note.

you can also connect the folder to your pc as a network folder. Then direct itunes to that now connected folder.

with my xp pro that's what I have to do to get things better... with xp home, I didn't have to. Vista didn't need such added measures as did xp pro... Pro has more security protocols in place. Vista just nags at you all the time until you disable the UAC... and setup defender better.

Also Vista has some out of the box issues at times with wireless connectivity... see my other Vista posts on the fix for that.

it's easy... even I can do it. it's just not terribly intuitive.

I've yet to find a media player that is supported well by the ones behind it's issuance. For that matter I’ve found little erstwhile support from any PC apart from Dell, and they ain’t no picnic to deal with either. The only resources are the other users predominately, and that’s a sad story if you ask me. Even for those media players you are forced to purchase if you want the advanced feature set the upscale version offers, you simply can’t rely upon them.

It’s like, Pay me, have fun, hope it works for you.

To apple/iTunes credit they did help me one time. Couple years ago I had a drive fail and lost a significant amount of tracks I had purchased from them. Several thousand in fact. Some were no longer available, but following a few emails, one lady on the Apple support team enabled me to re-download all they had on file for me. That amounted to close to two thousand tracks. Whew! I was grateful for that and had the idea of buying more digital acreage for backing up burned into me once and for all.

One thing…. When experimenting with pointing to folders, importing, etc. Just do one folder … an album for instance… when first trying to get things situated. Wasting time to sit and watch itnes import files it won’t track back to or play outright is not helpful. Once one artist/album is successfully imported, THEN go get the balance of the library.

If the drive is mapped properly itunes will play it. If not mapped, firewalls, permissions and such need be setup right. XP Pro is mighty picky… way more than XP Home.

YOUR NAS DRIV E should have a setup menu wherein you can map a folder directly to the Pro pc… and it’ll be seen as another drive. Browse to whatever folder you seek to add to itunes that way. Wx. If the nas folder containing the music = tunes… and tunes shows up as tunes on nas Z: … look for that folder outright… and not in your workgroup.

BTW… that has to be done if some other media player is used to play itunes protected files… sometimes… and definitely on my xp pro box.

If you tick the Make itunes the default player box in Preffs, Windows Explorer will show it in the right click menu when browsing and playing files from there.

If a mistake is made just delete the *.itl file from the itunes folder in My Music, (default location) and start over. They should put a clear library option in the player, but have not yet. Deleting that file will also delete your playlists, but leave the files alone. Make sure too, not to tick the box saying copy files to the itunes library folder when importing or adding files. That is a problematic selection!