Here is my challenge: I have a new Mac Mini, partitioned 50/50 Mac Lion/Win7 with Bootcamp. I have iTunes on both operating systems. How can I direct iTunes to the same library from iTunes on both partitions/operating systems? So I can sync my iDevices on iTunes regardless of what OS/partition I am on. I think I have it figured out if I put the library on an external drive. But, I want to keep the library on the Mac Drive/D, and still access it with iTunes on the Win7 /C drive iTunes.
At Wits End
- Thread starter Lon
- Start date
You need one additional tool to do that. In windows, you can read from the OSX partition, but not write to it. Writing is essential for keeping your iTunes Library up-to-date when you add stuff in windows. You can add this functionality to windows through software like MacDrive (free trial for 5 days, then $50). There may be cheaper software out there.
Once you get that straightened out:
-Go to c:\Program Files(x86)\iTunes
-Hold Shift and double-click iTunes.exe
-You should be prompted to choose an iTunes Library. Select "Choose Library..."
-Then navigate to your iTunes folder on your OSX partition, and select the .itl file in that folder.
and that should be it. Changes made in windows should be reflected in OSX and vice-versa. I haven't tried syncing iDevices with this setup, so there may or may not be other issues with that.
Once you get that straightened out:
-Go to c:\Program Files(x86)\iTunes
-Hold Shift and double-click iTunes.exe
-You should be prompted to choose an iTunes Library. Select "Choose Library..."
-Then navigate to your iTunes folder on your OSX partition, and select the .itl file in that folder.
and that should be it. Changes made in windows should be reflected in OSX and vice-versa. I haven't tried syncing iDevices with this setup, so there may or may not be other issues with that.
Thank you. Just out of curiosity, can you read/write to the Windows partition from the OSX partition?
OSX can read/write from/to FAT32 partitions, but chances are your windows partition is NTFS (Windows Vista and 7 both require NTFS). OSX can read from NTFS, but not write. But you can install software to make it work, just like with Windows and HFS+.
Do you (or expect to in the future) have large video files in your iTunes library? The reason I ask is because FAT32 cannot hold single files larger than 4GB. So if you do, even using an external FAT32 drive has its downside.
Apparently there is free software to enable NTFS writing in OSX called OSXFuse:
http://osxfuse.en.malavida.com/mac/
I haven personally used it, so I can't speak for its reliability, but it is free.
http://osxfuse.en.malavida.com/mac/
I haven personally used it, so I can't speak for its reliability, but it is free.
No. Pretty much standard DVD - type movies, which generally do not run much over 1-2GB. I will probably leave all on the OSX partition as my plan was to keep all media there and most other working files on the Win7 partition. I am having a good time becoming familiar with OSX, but not ready to abandon Win as my main OS just yet - too many years invested in it!