I downloaded the new version of iTunes and now over 100 songs have an exclamation mark beside them and won't play. The message says: "The song ... could not be used because the original file could not be found." How do I get these songs back?

I downloaded the new version of iTunes and now over 100 songs have an exclamation mark beside them and won't play. The message says: "The song ... could not be used because the original file could not be found." How do I get these songs back?

Presuming they're on your computer, right click on them and then follow the prompts to locate hte file on your computer.

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    This "original file cannot be found" thing happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, or that the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout,or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
    Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to get info, then cancel when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions.
    Alternatively, as long as you can find a location holding the missing files, then you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes .
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    Because the location for each song in your library is on your hard drive.  If the hard drive isn't there, how can iTunes play it?
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    -Delete EVERYTHING from iTunes, so that your library is now empty.
    -Go to "Advanced" inside of the "Preferences" window, found in the "Edit" drop-down.  You can also access Preferences by pressing Ctrl+, (Press Ctrl and the comma key)
    -Change your iTunes Media Folder Location to something simple, but on your computer. I use C:/iTunes.  Make sure "Keep iTunes Media Folder Organized" and "Copy files to...." are both checked.  You can close Preferences now.
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