Help: Can't import old imovies from external drive unless I save on iMac

Forgive me, I have read the similar questions in this forum, but I still need help.
I made a great number of movies using the old imovie HD, and then saved all of them on my external hard drive. When I open up imovie 08 and look at the event library, it lists my hard drive with that yellow warning triangle and exclamation point on it (What does that mean?). Naturally, the old movies don't show up, so I try to import them manually. When I do, the new movies get imported on my imac. Is there any way for the imported movies to remain on the external drive? And should I be worried about the warning triangle? I should add that the external drive is a "My Book" that was originally used on a PC, and has also been used on my imac for the last 12 months with no issue.
Thanks to all for your help.

+I should add that the external drive is a "My Book" that was originally used on a PC+
Then it is probably still formatted as a FAT partition, which has file size limitations that make it unsuitable for storing movies. You can check with "Disk Utility". For best results when used exclusively on a Mac, you should convert it to the Mac Journaled HFS file system with Disk Utility. The conversion will erase anything currently on the drive, so you will have to temporarily move the contents to another location.

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Cannot play iTunes after importing library from PC into Mac.

Simply highlight and delete
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This will delete not only the reference to the file, but the library.itl file that Limnos refers to.
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Help: Can't import old imovies from external drive unless I save on iMac

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