Can't locate original song files from iTunes

I purchased songs from iTunes & cant locate original files on my computer/iPod. Searched harddrive, recycle bin, etc. When you click on song title in library, states cannot locate original files and asks me to locate. Yet when I try to redownload from iTunes, it shows I purchased it but states already downloaded and won't let me download again. I even tried to purchase again and it won't let me. How do I get these back?

This happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, or that the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout,or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to get info, then cancel when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions.
Alternatively, as long as you can find a location holding the missing files, then you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes .
tt2

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Did you delete the hard copy of the songs from your computer after you uploaded them?
If so just highlight the said songs and delete but do not check the box that says delete from iCloud and your songs should play fine.
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Hi Guys,
I want to be able to delete actual song files from my external hard drive as well as from my iTunes library in one easy, lazy step, via the iTunes window. I am not interested in finding and manually deleting the files through my external hard drive.
When I hit delete it only deletes the song from my iTunes library but not the actual destination music file aswell (from my external hard drive). I am aware this is because my external hard drive is not the original "Music\iTunes\iTunes Music" destination that the apple crew have designed and so I am not offered the option of sending the file to the recycle bin or "trashing it" when I hit the delete key (this permanently deletes the file).
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Camoracer,
You are right. Pardon me. The majority of the music that I was trying to delete off my external hard drive was in a separate folder (on the external hard drive), not in the directory specified in my iTunes preference settings.
Problem solved!!!
This should also be a lesson to those who believe a one step delete function (from iTunes library and actual music file) is not possible when the music files are stored on an external hard drive (or other storage medium for that matter). I have read a host of other forums who say a one step delete function is not possible without additional software.. Perhaps these posts were from the authors of the software trying to make a $.
Cheers.

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See these previous posts on dotted circles
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Vi preciso che il mio iPad è della prima generazione ed è aggiornato all'IOS 6.

Can't locate original song files from iTunes

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