How to get iTunes and Mac OS 10.5 to leave my file organization alone

Question

I’ve organized my MP3 files for iTunes (using Mac OS 10.5.6) on a MacBook Pro. I did this manually since I have over 600 folders and thousands of song files. iTunes had created a mess. For example some albums were split up into different artists, composers or album names. Some files names began with a space or a dash, so they were our of alphabetical order. There were all kinds of nonsence with duplicated files etc. Once I got things all cleaned up and orderly I tried to make a backup of the master list by copying the files to a peripheral hard drive. The backup folders instantly reverted and even compounded the chaos that I had just fixed! If I delete all files from iTunes and reimport I end up with the same mess. How can I get iTunes and Mac OS 10.5 to leave my organization the way I want it and not revert to the old mess?

Answer 1

I don't understand.
If you uncheck *Copy files to iTunes music folder...* and *Keep iTunes music folder organized*, iTunes will not mess with the files unless you are RIPping them from CD using iTunes.
How do I change the tags so they are organized the way I want.
I don't know how you want them organized.
iTunes uses the tags and puts them into Artist/Album folders based on the ID3 tags.
If you are not using iTunes to organize stuff and simply naming things as you want, tags are irrelevant to how you put the files into folders and what you name the files.
When I copy the master list (with my organization) from one peripheral drive to another the files show up with the old names and folders.
Okay.