Frost*ies I Need You - Tech Help Required

[Bert]

Dearest Frost*ies. I am at a loss. But I hope one of you will be able to help me.

After some fruitless searching (well, not fruitless, just the wrong kind of fruit, if you see what I mean) on t'internet I thought I'd ask on here to see if someone can help solve my itunes conundrum.

Basically, I have just bought a shiny new computer for the lounge and want to play my iTunes music through it and into my hi-fi. Now, I already have another computer that I use to rip tracks to the particular itunes library I want to use. But my conundrum is this...

How do I get another, ie the new computer, to access that library ?

Now I should mention that the library I want to use is on a NAS on my network NOT on the other PC.

There seems no easy way to install itunes on a new computer, point it at an existing library hosted in my case on my NAS, and ask it to pull content from it. Which seems a bit ridiculous to me, unless I am missing something very obvious.

Has anyone out there done this, or knows what to do ?

if you can help, I'll make it worth your while in alcohol or chocolate (depending on taste and/or sex).

For a bonus prize, if anyone has come up with a cast iron way of getting a BT Broadband homehub 2.0 to stop dropping wi-fi connections, re-synching ADSL and generally pissing me off, I'd be all ears. Frankly, I'm ready to throw the whole lot in the skip, it's got so bad.

Ithangu

Bertxx

   

[Pedro]

I use iTunes and I have done some similar jiggery to that of which you speak, but I am not a guru.
You should be able to download and install iTunes and then, in the Advanced tab of the preferences, specify where the music is. You should be able to point this at the NAS somehow.

Not much help really but I think you should be able to crack it. If not, more info on what you see on screen will be needed.

As for the HomeHub, I don't have one but when my Netgear router was ddoing the same stuff I found that a firmware upgrade made th wifi more robust and not having the router on the end of a cheap-arse telephone extension lead kept ADSL up faaar longer. I don't suppose either of those are appliccablee in your case but there it is.

Hope you get it sorted.

Alcohol, chocolate and/or sex?  :shock:

[Trapezium Artist]

Fairly easy, if I have your question straight.

It's possible to switch library location when starting iTunes up (from scratch, making sure to quite it fully first): hold down the Option key, then click on iTunes to start it up, and you'll be asked to identify a location where your iTunes library is. Assuming the NAS is available to the new machine, you should be able to locate the iTunes library on it and off you go.

Failing that (?), some additional info (more similar to Pedro's) here:

//http://www.tuaw.com/2006/09/19/how-to-keep-your-itunes-library-on-an-external-hard-drive/

I'd go for the joint chocolate and beer combo reward, but apparently it's horrible:

Young's Chocolate Stout

[Drarok]

Fairly easy, if I have your question straight.

It's possible to switch library location when starting iTunes up (from scratch, making sure to quit it fully first): hold down the shift key, then click on iTunes to start it up, and you'll be asked to identify a location where your iTunes library is. Assuming the NAS is available to the new machine, you should be able to locate the iTunes library on it and off you go.

Two "corrections": one typo, and it's Shift on Windows. Option is correct for Mac.

Protential problem might arise if you have two computers pointed at the same library. I'd be surprised if it was supported at all, and utterly amazed if both can do it at the same time.

It's possible it'll work fine as long as only one iTunes is running at any one time, though.

[Bert]

Well, here in tech corner, I think I have solved my issues.

Re the homehub, it has gone in the bin, and I've gone back to my trusty version 1 which works fine.

As for iTunes, it seems the only way to get it to point to a pre-existing library and treat it as its own is to import the files, thus creating a copy of the library on the new pc.

Unfortunately in the process of doing so, I accidentally deleted the music files too, which means I've got to now rip the whole library from scratch and rebuild it. It will take me literally weeks to do this. I didn't swear... much.

Thanks for your help chaps. Beer/Chocolate and a garland of Martian Fireflowers for you the next time we meet.  

[rogerg]

oh, Bert, that sucks!!

but it makes me grateful for my mac where I only have to enable iTunes Sharing to share the Library.

[Big Black Shed]

oh, Bert, that sucks!!

but it makes me grateful for my mac where I only have to enable iTunes Sharing to share the Library.

I've tried that. Multiple user accounts on the same mac, share iTunes and iPhoto libraries, but it only works if both users are logged in.

Almost defeats the point.

[rogerg]

oh, Bert, that sucks!!

but it makes me grateful for my mac where I only have to enable iTunes Sharing to share the Library.

I've tried that. Multiple user accounts on the same mac, share iTunes and iPhoto libraries, but it only works if both users are logged in.

Almost defeats the point.

yeah, the "hosting" computer (even if it's pointing to an external) would need to be on and logged in (and iTunes on). that isn't a problem for me, since I leave my machines on 24/7 usually anyway.

[Drarok]

You could try some data recovery software to un-delete the files if you've not fiddled with the drive too much since they were deleted, you know?

[Bert]

You could try some data recovery software to un-delete the files if you've not fiddled with the drive too much since they were deleted, you know?

That's a thought. Thanks.