Itunes ?

Post number 7 in this thread will be of interest. Perhaps the problem is OS-related, triggered somehow by the update you did, and is not a problem with the drive itself.

If the problem does end up appearing to be drive-related, as indicated by the presence of similar symptoms when it is connected to different computers, if the drive is formatted in FAT32 and Toby's good suggestion does not resolve the problem you could try connecting it to a Windows computer and running the Chkdsk utility. Post back if you'd like further information about that, indicating which Windows OS is being used. I have found Chkdsk to be very effective in repairing corrupted disk file systems, which may be what is causing the problem.

Regards,
-- Al

Good advice from Al. One thing to try before you go either my route, above, or Al's, is unmounting the external disk (drag its icon to the trash or use the Eject button), then reconnecting it to the computer. See if the same message comes up. Sorry I didn't think of it earlier.

Do post back with an update if you get the chance.

Ok guys. I have tried a few things so far. The HD shows up on the desktop but not when i look for it as a new library option.
I tried the disc utility a few times. It didn't work. I tried it on 2 different Mac computers and it says the same message on both.
I will try to do the time machine backup to see if i revert to before i made the update to the latest version of itunes, if that works.
Luckily i did transfer all the info to a new HD just the other day.
Refresh my memory, when i add the new HD, do i just "add file to library"?

If your new HD is a duplicate of the one that's troublesome, and the troublesome one was you main iTunes library disc, then it should have an iTunes library on it.

In that case, hold down the Option (Alt) key when you click to start up iTunes in the Finder. When the "Choose iTunes Library" dialog appears, click "Choose Library...". In the window that appears, navigate to the new HD, find the iTunes library on it (just selecting the iTunes folder should be enough) and click "Open".

You should then have all your music available.

Good luck! Any other questions, or if this doesn't tell you what you want, please post.

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That might work but iTunes finds files by storing the path to it in the library. The backup would have to be an exact duplicate having the same name and same file structure as the original which is doubtful. If you renamed it to match the old one that might work. If you go to the Music/iTunes folder you can open the "iTunes Library.xml" file and see what path it is looking for.

Interesting, I just did a test by renaming my music drive and iTunes followed that by renaming the path of the song. Evidently it is now using something other than the name to keep track of them. Not sure it is smart enough to do that if you switch to a different drive.

If you do an "add to library" then you will have two listings for each song, one of which iTunes can't find because it isn't there. You can get rid of the dead tracks by using this http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=removedeadsuper but might as well start over at that point. Hold down the option key as you start iTunes and it will give you the option to create a new library. Create one then just drag and drop the new drive onto the iTunes icon in the dock and it will add the songs. Only problem you will lose things like play lists, play counts, and ratings if that matters to you.

At least you have a backup. Looks like you need to get another drive ASAP so you have another. Too bad drive prices jumped lately.

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