Getting tired of iTunes deleting my mp3s...on its own.

I have been an iTunes user for the longest time. However, as my music library grows (17,500 songs/128gb) so does iTunes' ability to keep track of all of it.
Usually, a few times a week I will notice after starting up iTunes, my library shrunk, in the size of usually an album (or about 80mb). I know whats happened, but I just can't fix it as I have a larger library, it would take hours to checklist everything from memory. iTunes has removed an album or two or three, sometimes even an entire artist's discography from the library and in about half the cases, entirely from the hard drive (a WD MyBook 500gb external).
Just this morning, I wanted to listen to the album "Stupid Dream" by Porcupine Tree, alas, it was not there. However a few Porcupine Tree albums were still there. When I go into my music folder to see if iTunes made the brilliant desicion that I clearly did not need those pesky MP3 files to listen to my music, I also noticed three other PT albums were also missing.
Thankfully I found the mp3 files intact in my music folders, however iTunes no longer likes them and wont add them to the library anymore. While every other media player out there plays them with a smile on its face.
Now that iTunes discriminates between mp3 files, I used an mp3 converter (Switch Sound File Converter to be exact) to convert them into exactly the same bitrate, tag info, litterally to my knowlage a carbon copy of all the info iTunes would ever make use of...and OH!!! iTunes now accepts the files as an equal. (does not work by making a copy of the file and importing the copy)
Though this has been going on since last summer as memory serves me, it's becoming more common, almost a daily occurance and I'm getting tired of re-ripping/downloading/converting/deleted file recovery files every time iTunes decides it knows whats best for my listening pleasure.
Things I notice:
-Never deletes a single song, only albums and/or entire artist discographys.
-Doesn't matter what genre, iTunes may discriminate against mp3s that are exactly alike, but it takes a "seperate but equal" stance between my Progressive Rock and Brutal Death Metal.
-If it was something other than iTunes, wouldn't the files remain as missing in iTunes and just deleted from the hard drive? Moreso, why are they just being deleted from the library and not the hard drive in some cases?
-Doesn't matter the source of the music, deleted albums have been from CDs I have purchased and ripped using iTunes, Downloaded, transfered from another device. I have never purchased a single song from the iTunes store that is in my library.
If the files that are being deleted were purchased from iTunes only for Apple's infinite wisom to have them deleted, I would be most likely burning someone's house down instead of posting here.
Thank you for your time and thoughts and a solution may be rewarded with extravagant fruit baskets.
<Edited by Moderator>

Honestly, I think something else is the root cause of this. iTunes is too stupid to change tags within MP3s on its own, and clean up your library for you.
WMP can change tags on its own in the background. Make sure the options for getting info from the internet are not enabled on both the privacy and library tabs. Other media software like Zune will also do this. WMP doesn't delete stuff from your itunes library, though.
I've seen several posts from users that Uniblue Speed Up my PC seriously messes with itunes library & files. Sony Vaio Folder Content Watcher constantly deletes the itunes music libray, as well....lots of posts on here about that one.
Since I have no idea what all you have installed on your PC, my general advice is to look for ANYTHING besides itunes that touches your music files and temporarily disable it for a few weeks. It could also be malware doing this.
The suggestion to run your files through MP3 Validator is also a good one. iTunes 8 is real picky about MP3 headers and if you can't add files back into your library, the MP3 headers might be the cause. I have all mine set for v2.3
http://www.gromkov.com/faq/repair/mp3_validator.html
Message was edited by: Katrina S.

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