HELP! Relocating iTunes library at once?

How do I relocate my entire iTunes library at once instead of locating all the songs individually ?
I recently upgraded to a new verion of windows and ever since all the songs say "The original file could not be found. would you like to locate it?". All my files (songs) are still in the same location before the upgrade which is on a external hard drive.
I've tried highlighting all the songs, going to preferences, advanced, and changing the iTunes media folder to the external hard drive but nothing changed.
I have over 7000 songs and it would be great if anyone knew a easier way to do this instead of locating every song one by one!
Thanks!

Select a single missing song in iTunes, press ctrl-i to Get Info., cancel when asked to look for the file. Look on the summary tab. The last known/expected location of the file will be given as something like:
file://localhost/C:/Users/<User>/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/<Artist>/<Album>/## <Name>.<Ext>
Where is the file really?
If you post back both paths, broken and actual, I can suggest the best approach to fix things. I have a script that can reconnect tracks but it may be that a simple edit on one file is all that is required.
tt2

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