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Windows Central Question
How to transfer music from Laptop to Windows Phone
I have a Lumia 630 running Windows 8.1. Earlier this year I bought a 64GB micro sdxc card so I could transfer my music from my laptop (an old laptop running, I think, either Vista or XP) to the phone, via an external hard drive. I did this by simple drag and drop from the place where I keep my music files (linked to iTunes which was on my laptop) to the music location on the phone. This worked fine, albeit some albums/artists showed up as 'unknown' for some reason. My files are a mixture of MP3, which is music I download from my preferred music website, and M4A, which I think relates to the music I imported from CDs, and I assume is an iTunes format. I have never purchased music from iTunes.
Anyway, the 64GB is not large enough as I have over 16000 tracks so I bought a 128GB card last week. A month ago I bought a new laptop running either Windows 8 or 8.1 (with the 10 update pending), and the music is all stored on the laptop rather than an external hard drive as this laptop has 400GB capacity. This time when I tried to drag and drop it started off ok, then it warned that M4A might not play on my device and asked if I wanted to convert, so I selected yes, and I think it started converting the files to WMA format. This process was taking forever so I left it overnight. In the morning I had a further error message, which I didn't note down, but basically saying it couldn't copy some files so I cancelled this process and thought I'd start again. I then tried using the Windows Phone app to sync from iTunes but for some reason the sync option would never be highlighted so I couldn't use this option. I then decided to put the card in an SD card adapter and into the laptop, and drag and drop this way. This time I didn't get the warning about M4A files and the transfer happened pretty quickly so I thought I had found a solution.
I put the card in the phone and waited an age for the files to all populate in the xbox music app. I then started trying to play some music but for virtually every track, with only a few exceptions, I got the error code 80070003, and it wouldn't play the tracks, whether the MP3 or M4A files (there is no clear pattern as to which ones work and which do not, but I would say 95+% are not working). I tried similar tracks on MixRadio and they would play fine, however it takes an age to load anything up on this app, and it keeps freezing, so I do not see this as a solution.
So, to cut a very long story short, is there a way that I can get my 16000 tracks in MP3 and M4A format from my laptop onto my phone and working properly? Is it possible that I am having an issue which I didn't have last time, because I am now transferring from a new laptop running a newer version of Windows? Is it a problem because I am using a larger micro sd card? I am finding it so frustrating as I thought it would be a simple process and I now feel I might have wasted my money buying the larger capacity micro sd card.
Any help you can offer would be appreciated, and please bear in mind I am not very technically minded.
I have a Lumia 630 running Windows 8.1. Earlier this year I bought a 64GB micro sdxc card so I could transfer my music from my laptop (an old laptop running, I think, either Vista or XP) to the phone, via an external hard drive. I did this by simple drag and drop from the place where I keep my music files (linked to iTunes which was on my laptop) to the music location on the phone. This worked fine, albeit some albums/artists showed up as 'unknown' for some reason. My files are a mixture of MP3, which is music I download from my preferred music website, and M4A, which I think relates to the music I imported from CDs, and I assume is an iTunes format. I have never purchased music from iTunes.
Anyway, the 64GB is not large enough as I have over 16000 tracks so I bought a 128GB card last week. A month ago I bought a new laptop running either Windows 8 or 8.1 (with the 10 update pending), and the music is all stored on the laptop rather than an external hard drive as this laptop has 400GB capacity. This time when I tried to drag and drop it started off ok, then it warned that M4A might not play on my device and asked if I wanted to convert, so I selected yes, and I think it started converting the files to WMA format. This process was taking forever so I left it overnight. In the morning I had a further error message, which I didn't note down, but basically saying it couldn't copy some files so I cancelled this process and thought I'd start again. I then tried using the Windows Phone app to sync from iTunes but for some reason the sync option would never be highlighted so I couldn't use this option. I then decided to put the card in an SD card adapter and into the laptop, and drag and drop this way. This time I didn't get the warning about M4A files and the transfer happened pretty quickly so I thought I had found a solution.
I put the card in the phone and waited an age for the files to all populate in the xbox music app. I then started trying to play some music but for virtually every track, with only a few exceptions, I got the error code 80070003, and it wouldn't play the tracks, whether the MP3 or M4A files (there is no clear pattern as to which ones work and which do not, but I would say 95+% are not working). I tried similar tracks on MixRadio and they would play fine, however it takes an age to load anything up on this app, and it keeps freezing, so I do not see this as a solution.
So, to cut a very long story short, is there a way that I can get my 16000 tracks in MP3 and M4A format from my laptop onto my phone and working properly? Is it possible that I am having an issue which I didn't have last time, because I am now transferring from a new laptop running a newer version of Windows? Is it a problem because I am using a larger micro sd card? I am finding it so frustrating as I thought it would be a simple process and I now feel I might have wasted my money buying the larger capacity micro sd card.
Any help you can offer would be appreciated, and please bear in mind I am not very technically minded.