I am getting the "Original File Cannot Be Found" error with 4000 exclamation points.  Please help...

To start from the beginning I originally kept my iTunes library on my internal hard drive.  However, it was getting large and I needed to move it so I moved it to an external drive.  Then I recently upgraded my internal hard drive to a 1 TB hard drive so that I would have plenty of space for everything.  I then moved my iTunes library to the new drive, or so I thought.  It is all technically there.  (As you can see from the bottom screen shot.)  However, for some reason iTunes is looking in the trash for a good portion of my library.  (I have 4400+ songs and 4000+ of them are showing the exclamation point and this error.)  I know that I must have done all of the moving around incorrectly.  (I followed directions from some blog I googled, big mistake.)  Now I just want to get my library how it should be.  All back together on this new internal drive with no dups etc.
I have over 4000 songs giving me this error.  I can go in one by one on each song and find it in the iTunes Media folder.  But I certainly don't want to do it that way.  Here is the info on where the song(s) seem to be currently:
Here's a shot of my preferences:
Just FYI, I know that apparently iTunes is looking for this music in the trash.  However, if I go here:
Then I find the music there as well.  (Which is where it is in my preferences.)
Please help!  I don't want to have to go through over 4000 songs and update them one by one.  The music is apparently in both the trash and in my iTunes media folder.  How do I get iTunes to look for these 4000+ songs in the right place without going in one by one to fix them?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

Hi JJuniper,
When tracks in iTunes display a it means the file cannot be located; it may have been moved or deleted. For this issue, we will need to refer to the following article:
iTunes: Finding lost media and downloads
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1408
Alternatively, if your media was downloaded from the iTunes Store, you may be able to download it again free of charge. You'll want to first delete the tracks from your list in iTunes, then access the purchased page:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519
Thanks,
Matt M.

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