Itunes ?

Ok, now i'm getting a little worried. I hooked up my HD that i thought i had backed up my other music on. When i did it said " The alias "music " could not be opened, because the original item cannot be found."
What does this mean?

It gives the options to fix alias or delete alias. Don't know what these mean.

Streetdaddy, I don't know what "music" is on your system. Is it a folder, or a drive, or what? Also, how did you copy your music data to the backup drive?

I don't understand why your system is looking for aliases either. An alias is a signpost pointing to another item. It looks just like the original but there is a little arrow in the bottom left corner of its icon. Aliases are useful when you're working in one part of your system, your travel pictures folder for example, and in it you want to have convenient access to another part of your system, say your maps folder. So you make an alias of your maps folder and you keep it in your travel pictures folder.

An alias can lose its internal map, the one which tells the system where to look for the file the alias points to. When this happens, the alias can be deleted (because it's now useless) or fixed, which means you have to show the system where the original file is. If you choose to fix it, the system will show you a file dialog and you will have to navigate your computer's file structure in that, until you find the original item.

If this item is your backup hard drive, this drive should show up in the Finder if it is in reasonably good shape. If you don't see it already, there are two ways to check:

1. Choose "About this Mac" in the Apple menu and click the "More info..." button. System Profiler will open and you'll be able to select USB or FireWire in the left hand panel. The right panel will show you what is connected to your computer by these protocols.

2. In the Finder, choose "Preferences..." in the Finder menu and then choose the "Sidebar" tab. In the Sidebar panel which appears, make sure the item "External discs" is checked in the list titled "Show these items in the sidebar:". Then open a window in the Finder by choosing "New Finder Window" in the File menu or by holding down the Command key and pressing "N". The external disc should show up in the sidebar.

Once you find the backup drive, I would run Disk Utility, select that drive and choose Repair, just in case. However it is possible that your main hard drive needs repair also, or instead. To do that, start up from your System Install DVD by inserting the DVD and choosing Restart while you hold down the "C" key. Keep that key down until the computer has started. Startup will be slow. Find Disk Utility when the computer has finished starting up and run Repair.

Tobias,
Thanks for taking the time for that response. Wow. You guys are very helpful taking the time out to help me.
Ok, I was originally unable to find the disc in finder. I did all the things you mentioned. When i checked the box on usb in finder, i was then able to see the hard drive. { i labeled it "music", btw}.

When i ran disc utility, it said it couldn't be repaired or something similar. I then ejected that disc and hooked up my backup disc. When i backed it up, i hooked them up at the same time and "dragged" the original disc over to the new disc. I thought i had backed it up. Now i am wondering if i didn't do it correctly.
When i hook up the new disc, it shows up in finder and checks out ok in disc utility, but when i try to open it it says "alias "music" can't be found because the original item can't be found"

I have so many hours invested in burning all my cd's , i'm getting a sick feeling in my stomach!

When you say start up dvd, are you talking about the dvd's that came with the computer? Also, does it matter which computer i do this on? As it is much easier to do all this work on my imac downstairs. When i use the mini i have to lay on the floor and crane my neck and use the projector for the screen.

Thanks ,again.
Kale

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Ouch, I think you may have a problem. If you dragged and dropped I'm pretty sure you just created an alias, what is called a shortcut in the world of Windows. It didn't actually copy the files, it just created a pointer that says where the original files are (or unfortunately where they were).

If you double click the backup to see the files does it show all of your files or just an alias, an icon with a little arrow on it.

If only the icon your only hope is to somehow recover the original drive.

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