iTunes Folder Cannot be found or created (windows)

March 13, 2007 at 2:46 am · Filed under Uncategorized

**DIGG THIS STORY, HELP OTHERS** :)
Well, I’m tired but I’m happy. I recently installed a new hard drive and copied all my data from my old drive to the new one and changed the drive letter so as to not cause any interruptions. Well, iTunes didnt like my plan so much and somehow windows didnt either. After I moved everything over to the new drive, I ran itunes thinking it would work great and I am so smart and I know how to make computers my bitch. WRONG! I get this wonderful error that says… “iTunes folder cannot be found or created” So I make sure the folder is there which I just recently moved onto this new drive, so it would not be impossible to have misplaced it somehow. Anyway, all of that checks out fine. I then uninstall and reinstall about nine hundred and ninety nine times. Google helps me a bit, but not overly. I find some registry edits that should fix my problem, but they dont. blah. Originally I found a post from someone saying that you need to edit HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders and place the correct path in the “My Music” key. This lead me to some crazy problems that I’m almost afraid to figure out the answer to. Basically, I’d put in d:\my music into the respective key and when I run iTunes, it would actually somehow delete the entry!!! Thats right, iTunes was clearing out my registry! grr. Ok, so maybe it was not iTunes, but I’m a dumb user and have no clue. Either way, the key was an empty field when I refreshed it AFTER running iTunes. Yes I tested this without running iTunes and the key was fine.

Anyways, so there is a second registry folder to edit and that is…

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

That folder will have the same stuff in it, but I think windows uses it more or something. Anyway, I’m tired and dont care but am happy my tunes are flowing freely again.

Man I got some talkative friends. :-) (yes, out of place and seemingly random, yet not.)

**edited**

Alright guys, basically what you need to do is the following…

Run regedit from the Start >> Run menu. Then navigate to the above registry key which is a tree like structure starting with HKEY_CURRENT_USER. So click the plus sign next to that and it will drop down with more subcategories. Then follow down to Software >> Microsoft >> Windows >> CurrentVersion >> Explorer >> User Shell Folders. Once you get into User Shell Folders, there will be a list of “Keys” which will include one called “My Music” It may be blank or it may have a path in it like c:\documents and settings\user\my documents\my music. Basically you want to put the correct path to where your itunes folder is located. NOT the iTunes folder itself, but the directory above that, so since my itunes folder is D:\Private\My Documents\My Music\iTunes, I put in D:\Private\My Documents\My Music\ as my path.

Hope that helps guys.

63 Comments »

  1. Mitch said,

    April 1, 2007 @ 4:38 am

    Thanks, this saved me a huge headache. I did the same thing as you, installed it about 10 times and looked at registry myself, but didn’t know about the user shell folder settings. Thanks again.

  2. Josh said,

    April 1, 2007 @ 11:36 am

    Wahoo! someone actually found my blog useful. Hmm April 1st. Not likely, but still funny.

  3. Neveen said,

    April 2, 2007 @ 12:43 am

    Thank you so much!!! I have been going NUTS for the past few days, and I searched through the registry but didn’t know about this until I read your blog either…Awesome. (Yes, it’s April 1st, but I’m 100% serious :)

    Neveen

  4. Josh said,

    April 2, 2007 @ 1:19 am

    Thats awesome guys! Glad i could be of help. I may edit this post a bit to make it easier to read… so you an just glance at it and see what you need to fix the problem.

  5. Tami said,

    April 3, 2007 @ 9:40 pm

    Woo… Thank you so much for this. I was going insane trying to figure out what was going on. I moved all my music to an external hard drive, and suddenly itunes decided to give me this error. It’s working now, thanks to you!

  6. Josh said,

    April 4, 2007 @ 8:35 am

    Awesome! I’m really glad I could help you all. Now I see why blogging is so important. This information was else where on the net, but obviously hard to find since it took me forever to find it.

  7. Donovan said,

    May 5, 2007 @ 12:37 am

    Thanx alot.
    The iTunes website gave me nothing and this worked like a charm

  8. Nick said,

    May 27, 2007 @ 6:39 pm

    can some one tell me how i actually do this majic command????

  9. wednesday said,

    May 29, 2007 @ 10:55 pm

    For those who don’t know a lot about computers, just like me, i learned that you just write down regedit in the run command and viola!

  10. Josh said,

    May 29, 2007 @ 11:42 pm

    Still need help? I can give more detailed instructions for those that need it, just let me know.

  11. Brandon said,

    June 7, 2007 @ 3:47 pm

    Wow, thanks a bunch! I was so frustrated not having iTunes working. This fixed it immediately!

  12. J. Gary Ellison said,

    June 8, 2007 @ 7:40 pm

    I changed the registry as prescribed but without any success; I still got the error. While browsing with a file management program. I found an mp3 file and “Open(ed) with” iTunes. That opened iTunes. I play a few songs, shut it down and reopened it and it now works fine.

    So if all else fails, and maybe before all else fails, use a file manager to manually open an mp3 file with iTunes. It might work for you too.

  13. Josh said,

    June 8, 2007 @ 7:50 pm

    Where was this file? I mean, what directory did you find it in? Glad you got it working. Glad everyone is finding this useful.

  14. Thanks So Much said,

    June 10, 2007 @ 11:55 pm

    man..i started reading your fix and i thought..man…come on..and i wasnt expecting to fix to work..so without trying i went on to other sites and no luck..15 minutes later i gave it a shot and…magic..

    thanks dude,,whoever you are..im sure you saved me lots of time and frustration..

  15. Brett said,

    June 13, 2007 @ 7:20 pm

    Thanks alot, you solved a real puzzle for me.

  16. Amanda said,

    June 28, 2007 @ 4:25 pm

    hi, i think i need the more detailed instructions for this… please and thankyou!

  17. Luke said,

    July 3, 2007 @ 5:46 am

    Hello!
    I have this same problem.
    I honestly am pretty useless with anything more challenging then then ‘double click’, so i need you to break this down for me please! It really is annoying not being able to use iTunes…

    I understand how to run ‘regedit’.
    When it opens – where exactly to i need to copy and paste ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders’
    and
    ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders’
    ???

    Sorry if this comes across as totally dumb – errr, i guess i am!

    Thanks!

  18. Josh said,

    July 5, 2007 @ 12:38 am

    i’ve been in the hospital and still pretty sick, can someone help these guys? i’ll help, but it will have to be next week, sorry guys.

  19. Josh said,

    July 6, 2007 @ 5:55 pm

    Ok guys, I’m out of bed and can actually type now.

    I’ve edited the post to be a little more explanatory.

  20. Andy Short said,

    August 22, 2007 @ 11:32 pm

    Thanks man, you rock! feel like my laptop is my bitch now hehe!

  21. Pete said,

    September 4, 2007 @ 6:49 pm

    Thanks, this fixed my problem!

  22. Ben said,

    September 7, 2007 @ 10:49 pm

    You are without question, the mother fucking man. I have been searching for the answer for weeks and finally found it.

  23. Josh said,

    September 8, 2007 @ 11:50 pm

    haha, thanks man… appreciate it. I’m just glad someone found this to be useful as it took me a long time to discover the fix myself.

  24. Georgina said,

    September 10, 2007 @ 8:13 am

    Man you rock i did the excactly same thing as what you do did about 10 times tried the registry thing 10 times and finally what you said worked .I was almost at crying point! I thought i was going to have to pay to get someone to fix this, thanks a million!!!!! thank goodness for computer Geniuses like you Josh that figure these things out! you are officially my hero!!

  25. Georgina said,

    September 10, 2007 @ 8:17 am

    Thank you so much josh you are my hero! thank goodness for computer geniuses like you!!!! Thank you, thank you!!!!!!! i was in total rage and was on the verge of crying! i can not thank you engough!!!

  26. Georgina said,

    September 10, 2007 @ 8:18 am

    oh silly me ! i didnt think the first comment worked! lol anyway you get my point thanks!

  27. Monday said,

    September 17, 2007 @ 11:38 am

    That’s great, cheers for posting that info, a real help.

  28. Vikram said,

    September 19, 2007 @ 6:36 pm

    thanks for this, i installed itunes a million times and that wasnt even the problem

  29. Ryan said,

    September 20, 2007 @ 5:53 pm

    When i type in regedit, a screen flashes up and disappears again. If anyone could point me in right direction it’d be much appreciated

  30. Steve said,

    September 27, 2007 @ 12:25 am

    Thank you So much, not even the itunes support site or Apple could help. These steps are perfect and this worked the first time! Thanks so much!!

  31. Michael said,

    September 30, 2007 @ 9:41 am

    You are my new favorite person! You saved me untold amounts of consternation and ill will towards Apple and my computer both

  32. THANK YOU said,

    October 1, 2007 @ 10:32 pm

    THANK YOU!!!!!! I’ve been looking EVERYWHERE for this solution across the internet, and FINALLY after a couple days of surfing MY ITUNES WORKS AGAIN!

    THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

  33. Megan said,

    October 15, 2007 @ 8:26 pm

    thank you so much… i have over 10000 songs on my itunes and when it suddenly came up with the error message, i almost had a heartattack. i have been looking for three days for a way to fix it and nothing worked or made sense until i came across your blog. thanks for saving me a trip to the geek squad at best buy

  34. John said,

    October 15, 2007 @ 9:25 pm

    I’ve been reading many posts….and I’m still confused.

    When I have my external hard drive hooked up, itunes works fine. However, when it isn’t hooked up, itunes won’t open.

    I don’t know much about the registry, but something has to change. What exactly do I need to change in the registry? What do I have to type? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    desiretochange@gmail.com

  35. Katie said,

    October 25, 2007 @ 11:19 am

    Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! Your awesome solution and excellent explanation just saved me from a complete iTunes nightmare. You rock!

  36. Kim said,

    October 27, 2007 @ 1:51 pm

    You are the best!! I did exactly what you said and it corrected the problem immediately – thank goodness I found your solution!! Again you are the BEST!!

  37. Kim said,

    October 27, 2007 @ 1:55 pm

    Worked like a charm!! Thanks, you saved me many hours!!

  38. delayedbird said,

    October 29, 2007 @ 7:07 am

    man it didnt work i did it exactly (its broken) crap plz help

  39. slayer said,

    November 23, 2007 @ 7:58 pm

    “Run regedit from the Start >> Run menu. Then navigate to the above registry key which is a tree like structure starting with HKEY_CURRENT_USER. So click the plus sign next to that and it will drop down with more subcategories. Then follow down to Software >> Microsoft >> Windows >> CurrentVersion >> Explorer >> User Shell Folders”

    im noob at this so..:
    1, what u mean by run regedit from the start?
    2,i copied HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders and it say not found

  40. ash said,

    December 3, 2007 @ 1:05 pm

    I couldnt’ leave this site without saying thankyou so much, especially for your *edited* part to account for dummies like myself. All the best.

  41. Tobias Funke said,

    December 8, 2007 @ 9:07 am

    Wow! I spent hours trying to solve this problem. Every website I came across gave me unclear/confusing/unhelpful help — that is, everyone except for THIS website!

    It worked like a charm!

    Thank you so much.

    -Uncle Tea-bag

  42. Quangy said,

    December 22, 2007 @ 12:33 pm

    Worked a treat, luckilly I found your fix quite quickly, but not before reading some that where giving misleading information. Advice was simple to follow and worked 1st time.

    Cheers

  43. Christina said,

    December 22, 2007 @ 6:06 pm

    Thanks! You’re my hero. When I bought my computer, my hard drive was split into two: a C and a D. This began to present a problem when I ran out of room for programs on my C drive so a friend merged the two drives into one for me. When I went to use iTunes again, I had the problem you described. I tried reinstalling etc. but of course, nothing worked. I knew what the problem was but had no idea how to fix it. This worked like a charm and in less than 10 minutes! Wooh-hoo!

  44. ADC said,

    January 4, 2008 @ 11:01 am

    GREAT!!! :-)
    Thanks So Much!

  45. Ken Fasano said,

    January 14, 2008 @ 7:07 pm

    Yes, yes, yes! That got it working on Vista. Thank you!

  46. Lisa said,

    January 15, 2008 @ 12:26 pm

    Wow, talk about the “gift that keeps on giving” — your original post (or maybe that’s the updated one you mention) is dated almost a year ago — and I’m just finding you this morning.

    Weirdly enough, I had another error message originally (1327 invalid drive) and found a fix for that yesterday and got my iTunes up and running, but when I shut the computer down last night and restarted it this morning, I got the error messages you guys are talking about.

    Now I’m up and running again!! Also, I’ve never plumbed the depths of the “Regedit Tree” and that was fun!!

    Thank you, Josh!!!

    Lisa

  47. Josh said,

    January 16, 2008 @ 12:05 am

    I’m glad you all have found my site useful. Sorry for the lack of updates and the ever changing theme. I cant seem to find a good one out there and I suck at design. I had one before that was done for me, but it was not compatible with the more secure, more recent versions of Wordpress. Anyway, Glad I could help!

  48. saaio said,

    January 19, 2008 @ 1:30 am

    I’m going to sound like a broken record but I’m sure you won’t mind. THANK YOU for posting this. It completely solved my problem.

  49. Randall said,

    January 20, 2008 @ 8:27 pm

    Incredible…took me a year to finally decide that I want to use my PC as well as my laptop for itunes. Finally saw your blog, and fixed the issue. Thanks man.

  50. Dan said,

    June 10, 2009 @ 1:53 pm

    Thanks very much for posting! Very helpful!

  51. Clive said,

    July 9, 2009 @ 4:11 pm

    Thank you very much. This problem had completely stumped me, and fiddling around with the registery keys it not something I would choose to do. Anyhow I tried your suggestion and it worked right away. I tunes now opens and all my music is there. Thanks. Clive

  52. Liam Jones said,

    July 22, 2009 @ 2:48 am

    Amazing, works perfectly after trying other things

  53. David said,

    July 24, 2009 @ 6:30 pm

    Thank you! It worked for me as well. I had almost given up.

  54. gizmodianskyrocket said,

    August 2, 2009 @ 7:47 pm

    OMG!!!! Thank you so much! After too many HOURS trying to figure this out, I was seriously only 10 minutes away from throwing my computer out the window!

  55. dave said,

    August 4, 2009 @ 10:14 am

    Dude, Thanks a bunch.

    Yes fixed my problem too.

  56. Gshake said,

    August 16, 2009 @ 6:05 pm

    The old regedit trick,
    Cheers

  57. Poli said,

    September 14, 2009 @ 2:07 pm

    Thanks a million – you are an absolute star. I was tearing my hair out until I found your post… you have made me very happy!

  58. Andy said,

    October 8, 2009 @ 11:13 pm

    That was absolutely amazing! WOW! Thank you so much! I unplugged my external hard drive and when i plugged it back into the tower, the computer recognized it as the G Drive instead of the F Drive as it’d always been. (How does that happen?) Thank you!

  59. annie said,

    November 4, 2009 @ 1:53 am

    the only explanation that makes any sense. i just had to say thanks! piece of cake, you’re the best.

  60. Caitlynn said,

    November 9, 2009 @ 2:23 pm

    I LOVE YOU!
    I have been trying to fix this for days, and finally help comes in the form of YOU!
    Seriously, you don’t know how happy you’ve made me.
    Thank you.

    xx

  61. Seb_da_Leb said,

    December 13, 2009 @ 4:43 am

    Thx cuzz. Now I can put all the new fully sikk hectic music on my ipod. Bra ur a lifesaver, kudos to u habibi. Yalla tc man.

  62. r k c said,

    December 26, 2009 @ 12:52 pm

    Thanks. You have another fan ! Finally I got an i-touch from my grown kids. After two hours I almost
    gave up. Then I googled with the error message. And found YOU!
    I printed out your instructions– very clear instructions–and after following them (using reverse slashes) suddenly the world of the i-pod came ALIVE!
    Thank you for taking the time. And you did it two years ago!

    rk

  63. Jamie said,

    January 26, 2010 @ 9:19 pm

    I feel like the odd ball because it didn’t work for me… help!

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