I have transfered all my music onto an external hard drive from my old computer and itunes wont recognize the songs in my library...help!!

**** YOU ITUNNES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi,
I did the same XP to Windows 7 upgrade about 18 months ago. I decided to keep iTunes permanently on the external drive than the c drive to save c: drive space.
ITunes database has pointers to MP3 files located in Artist's directories. If you want to use a different location than the default C:\ drive for iTunes, then you need to recreate the Itunes database by deleting all songs in iTunes, then change the default location for iTunes files to your external drive. Then import the MP3 files from the external drive into the empty iTunes database through the iTunes import facility.
If you screw up the timing of the import and find you have multiple iTunes directories (instead of just the default location), then iTunes has a new feature to consolidate all iTunes MP3 files back into the central default location. In iTunes, FILE, LIBRARY, ORGANIZE LIBRARY, then CONSOLIDATE FILES.
To change the default directory for MP3 files, in Tunes go to EDIT, PREFERENCES, ADVANCED and then CHANGE the location to where you want the Itunes MP3 files to be located (including the iTunes subdirectory under which all the artist directories are held. Mine are on the F: drive or whatever your computer states is your drive assignment for the external drive.
Note iTunes 10.5 has many problems that Apple hopefully are working on....we seem to have gone backwards on working components in this iCloud based release. So maybe keep on using old computer until 10.6 is released.
Enjoy
Steve Mc (Sydney AUSTRALIA)

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iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
Also, here is another great resource for moving your iTunes media.
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Cheers,
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I have transfered all my music onto an external hard drive from my old computer and itunes wont recognize the songs in my library...help!!

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