How do I find origional files?

Question

I rearranged my music folders on my computer and now when I attempt to play a song in my iTunes it gives me this error message:
The song could not be used because the original file cannot be found. Would you like to locate it.
I am able to locate the song, but finding my whole library like this would be impossible. Help!

Answer 1

When you change the folder structure of your music files, iTunes has no way of knowing what's being done.
The references it uses to find the song files are based on the previous structure but because of the changes that have been made, those references no longer lead it to the songs in your iTunes Library.
There is an alternative to telling iTunes about the new path to your songs on a one by one basis - which is what you're doing now. Unfortunately, though, there is a drawback to the alternative: You will lose all the information that tells iTunes about Ratings, Play Counts, Dates Added, Dates Last Played, Dates Modified, Equalizer Presets, Volume Adjustment and Playlists (the last three, if applicable) for your songs.
If you're willing to pay that price, here's how to go about it:
First of all, quit iTunes.
Now, assuming you've kept iTunes default settings, open Windows Explorer and make your way to C:\Documents and Settings\User Name\My Documents\My Music\iTunes . You will remove the two iTunes Library files - iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Music Library.xml - from that location. Putting them out of the way on your Computer Desktop is probably a good idea.
Next step is to run iTunes. When the program is running, you will see that the Library Display is now empty, the reason being that when you removed the iTunes Library files, you cut off the last connection between iTunes and your music files.
Finally you will add the music to iTunes by your favourite method as described in the Add to Library section of this article in the Apple Knowledge Base.
Just remember that for iTunes it will be as if the songs are being added for the first time and it will have no knowledge of their previous existance in your Library.