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[Tim]

Hi folks,

Media centre has worked fine for several months. Out of the blue I am finding it difficult to access playlists and albums via the normal interface which are stored on an external (E) drive (Western Digital usb type 2tb box). I can access off the C drive on the laptop but that is not my main library for the usual reasons (space, clutter etc.). If I access an individual E drive track from windows explorer (Windows 7) it opens media centre and plays it. Equally if I search via file - open media in the program it will play individual tracks. If I try and play an album or a playlist however I get the file not found message.

I hope this is simple as I have little knowledge of computer programs (or interest - they are a tool and when paid for should do the job they are designed to do). The E drive works with other programs - can anyone help - is this a common problem?

thanks very much

Tim

[MrC]

Examine the path of the problematic tracks by looking at the Filename field in the Tag action window (or add it as a column in a file list).

Does it show the correct path?

[Tim]

Thanks for answering but I do not understand what you are referring to as I have little knowledge of such things. As I said before, nothing will play via the usual route (clicking on album cover or playlist) but will play via file (top left of screen) or by going through windows explorer. Music on the C drive will play. The E drive appears to work with other programmes (Nikon Capture, Photoshop etc.) I have not changed any tag information and it worked until today. Now it says that there is a playback problem and to check tags or paths or something but this means little to me and I would not know how to go about checking or what to do if something did not match. I am interested in many things, particularly music, but find the inner workings of computers and programs mind numbingly dull.

Please explain what I have to look for and how it went wrong/how to put it right. Thanks very much again for trying to help.

[kensn]

Hey Tim,

Highlight a song you are trying to play by clicking on it.
In the bottom left hand corner of the screen there is a menu called Action Window where there should be items like

Burn Disc
Rip Disc
Sync handheld
Camera Build Playlist
Tag

If you don't see these Expand the Action Window.

With a song you are trying to play highlighted click on the TAG item in the action window. It should show some tag values for the file.
Right click in the action window and select "Show All Tags"

Scroll down and find Fileame. That is where the program thinks your file is.

[Tim]

Ok thanks,

The filepath E:should refer to the elements drive and I assume once did. That drive is now called (I:) by the computer - why I do not know. It will not let me redesignate it as E: via the rename route. Do I need to redesignate it as E: anyway and what is the significance of this and why did it change?

Sorry for the multiple questions but I just want to get the thing working again. Thanks for all your help so far.

[MrC]

Windows will periodically reassign drive letters if necessary.  You can use the Windows Disk Management utility to change the drive letter back to E if you want.

Alternatively, within MC, you can use the Rename tool, in Update mode, to Find/Replace the drive letter portion of your media file paths.  This only updates MC's notion of where your media resides.  (i.e. you'll be updating the [Filename] field for all media files to reference to the new location).