iTunes 11 the lost files

Was iTunes "pointing" to the external drives when you did those rips? In iTunes check preferences-advanced , where iTunes puts music data is there, but if the external drives were not available it would have put the music data in it's default location, probably on the main hard drive on the iMac or Macmini depending where original iTunes was located. 

Check where those "rogue" files are right click a track  and"get info"

Thanks BigH4, everything was pointing to the correct place, the files are there, but they don't show up in the music listings ie composer, album etc.

Strange.

rob H

It may be hard to right click it if you can't find it

Try this:  Open finder.  Then click on your home in far left, them music.  In the upper right type a name of a lost song and search.  It will come up.  Control click this, click get info and in that info after "where" should be the file site where that song and all the other "lost songs are"

So for example if I looked for Astral Weeks on my MBP it was here:      /Users/gregursino/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/Van Morrison/Astral Week

Once you find them you can copy them and drag them to your usual place but as BigH says check your iTunes setting to be sure when you add/import/rip music it is going to where you want

If you're using an external drive to store your music iTunes' behaviour of reverting to its default location without any indication it's done so is very annoying! I use a Drobo drive which enters a sleep mode and takes a moment or two to kick back into life & several times I've discovered rips have been diverted to this default location. It's a real nuisance! A warning would be useful.

What they said!  

Mine would have been a good answer if I had used the bit about searching for the music before you click on it. 

I was chatting to the guy in our local Apple store (franchise) he was having the same problem, and it's on the help fora too, again with no permanent solution.

What appears to be the problem is finding where this default is stored, to be able to alter it.

Whether a complete iTunes removal and installation, using the new data location would work I don't know.

I've tried to get into the habit of checking iTunes preferences before ripping, it only takes a few keystrokes so no hassle.

I too use an external drive for music storage.

My rule of thumb is to make sure the external drive appears on my desktop before opening i-tunes. This ensures itunes uses the target drive.

Yes, so do I now James!

 Yes, it is annoying as hell. Even more annoying is that it would be a trivial fix. A simple message that said that iTunes can't find its drive, and asking if you want to revert to default would be all it takes.

It was this that made me buy a Mac Mini Server with 1.5TB on-board so all my stuff could be local so iTunes doesn't get lost.