Copy itunes music library.xml from one pc to another

purerandom

hi all,
i have a huge amount of music on an external hard drive.
I imported it into my old laptop and it took over a day to import. the mp3s are all on the external hard drive and i see that all the locations are stored in My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music Library.xml.

In an attempt to save time i copied the iTunes folder from my old laptop to my new one. All the mp3s are visible in iTunes but when i click on one it says that it cannot find the file and would i like to locate it!

is what i am trying to do possible or is my only option to import the whole thing again which takes a day to complete?

Also, if i change the name of the music folder on my external harddrive, can i just do a find and replace in iTunes Music Library.xml to reflect the new location? is it that simple?

any help welcomed.

coylemj

You don't have to physically copy the music to your new laptop, you can tell iTunes to access the files from the external hard drive, here's how to do it....

1. In iTunes open Edit/Preferences, then click the 'Advanced' tab

2. The second tick box is an option 'Copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library', untick this box and click 'OK' to close this window

3. Now click on File and 'Add folder to library' and select the folder on the external hard drive where your music is stored. The music on the external drive will be added to the iTunes library without the files being copied to the iTunes folder on your C drive.