A different laptop to external hard drive question

hey folks - I am hoping someone can help me (or clarify things for me)
My question is about shootig remotely, downloading files onto lightroom in the field, then transferring the whole lot to my external hard drive when I get home (so there is NOTHING left on my laptop except the lightroom application and an empty catalog when I am done)
I see people asking a similar question all the time on blogs and FAQs, but the answers do not actually answer my problem/question. The answers I see all the time are about exporting and importing catalogs... maybe this is the solution, but I can't see how it answers my parameters above.
Here is the equipment I am using:
- MacBook Pro
- Lightroom 2.1
- External Western Digital hard drive/firewire
- Nikon DSLRs
- Card reader
Here is the situation:
I have the lightroom application loaded onto my laptop. I have a massive repository of my "negatives" on my external drive. I have one big "catalog" on the external drive in the same folders with my "negatives". (so, to view those photos, I open that external drive catalog and view/edit the massive group of photos).
However, when I am on the road, I shoot and download the nagatives onto my laptop hard drive and add the files to a catalog that I have on my laptop -- so, based on my understanding of how lightroom works, these new imports (on the road) have 1) the actual negatives, 2) the metadata/lightroom files thumbnails and details of my edits, and 3) these are included in the "catalog" on my laptop hard drive. So, then, while still on the road, I edit the new photos, crop, color correct etc.
Then, when I get home, I would like to completely transfer/migrate EVERYTHING I just wrote above (except the actual lightroom application and the "catalog" that sits on my laptop) into the existing catalog and negative folders on my external drive... I would like it all to blend into my main system run off my external drive as if I had originally imported the files into my main catalog on my external drive... and I would like my laptop to be like it never had anything to do with the import/edits on the road (no files whatsoever in terms of originals, lightroom files, etc.)
All of the instructions/answers I can find on line tell me how to "export" my catalog to my external hard drive (essentially creating a duplicate version on my external hard drive - showing how you can do this to take images to clients, etc.).
Can anyone point me to an explanation of the process to completely TRANSFER (not copy) all related files from my laptop to my exiting catalog and negative file folders on my external when I come back from the field?
sorry if this is confusing - I may not be interpreting the instructions I am seeing correctly.
any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks
steve
www.holleyimage.com

I ended up creating a folder within LR on the ext drive-then moved my folders from the internal and another ext drive. I intend to delete those exported (fr LR) files I mentioned in my last post. each one of them had an additional file under it (X something) that said it contained metadata. I fear that by exporting those files, I've now lost the metadata in the files in the catalog. If that's the case, obviously, I'd like to get it back if I can. also, is there a way to make sure I have everything in my new external drive that was on the other two drives? (they were pretty disorganized and I'm not sure all the image files were imported to this catalog. can I import the files I'm not sure I have to the top level folder on my new drive and tell it not to import suspected duplicates and then move any imported files (within LR) to the proper folders?
and one final question: when I exported all the image files into the new drive, LR said it couldn't export about 1000. they are in a separate folder and when I look inside, I see question marks on them. I suspect I already have them in the catalog and these are duplicates because when I didn't know what I was doing, I ended up with a lot of duplicate previews. do you think I should remove that folder with the previews in it and will that take them out of the catalog as well?
thanks in advance for your help
debby (virginiaDeb)

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JayMacApple wrote:
Can you play back music and movies from an external hard drive through Apple TV or do they have to be physically need to be on the Apple TV HD?
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