I'm unclear on settings and misplaced some data, Please help?

Question

I have been using Media player for music but decided to finally use my airport express since the software is fixed. I downloaded Itunes to my Windows XP notebook. All the Mp3 that were in Media Player (ie. my music) transferred just fine. I then decided I need more room in my home so began importing all my CD's so I could store the original discs. I imported as .wav files so as to retain as much clarity as possible. I made the assumption that Apples' lossless would be as limiting as Media Player's which won't let you play your on other music players such as Itunes.
I only have 90GBs on my hard drive so it was filling up fast. I then decide to move all the music files to an external HD (attached to my notebook currently) which, upon completion of the CD importation, I could attach to my home server and make available to all home computers. The new directory was F:music. I moved all music files in my music that consisted of MP3 and imported wav files. I then continued to import to my notebook.
After another round of moving the files, I realized that I should leave the external drive attached to my notebook and Import the files to the external drive. Here is where the wheels BEGIN to fall off. I should have attached the External drive from the beginning but hindsight is 20/20.
Bare in mind, the rest of this is likely out of sequence because I have made so many changes and tried to fix things.
I went to edit, then preferences and changed "Itune Music folder location" to F:music. Within the music folder I now had all my artist's folders. Within the artist's folders were the albums. Within the albums are all the individual tracks from the albums. Incidentally, when I imported the CDs as wav, all info was available and copied. I could see all the data (ie wav file itself, album cover, year, artist, album name, genre, etc...) in Itunes and in the folders by checking the properties of the songs. In addition to all the artist's folders in alphabetical order in F:music, Itunes folder was also listed next to the INXS folder. Within the itunes folder, were the subfolders: itunes Music, itunes Library.itl, and itunes Music Library.xml. However, the same were still in the my music folder in my documents on the C:. I'm not sure it was there as a pointer of some sort or not.
Ok, not sure what was going on, I began trying to fix, what I percieved as little problems. I tried various things like checking and unchecking "keep itunes music folder organized". I also checked and unchecked "copy files to itunes music folder when adding to library". Probably tried to combine the Library.itl at some point.
After a while, I when I started itunes the MP3 files were theere and listed all data. However, the imported files, althought available, only listed the track # and song title. All other data was missing in itunes. I could play the songs but they were sorted by track and titles. I had dozens of track 01 through 09 and etc... The info was still in the original artist's folder but not in itunes.
I then tried restores to previous times to fix this with out success. I moved things around uninstalled and maybe even accidentally deleted things, however unlikly. I also restored everything in my recycling folder just in case.
I now have a totally screwed up list, with exception of the original MP3s. The song data in now missing from the folders, although track # and song title still exist.
95% of the music is in an unknown artist's file in F:
Is there a way to rebuild this without loading in the individual CDs?
I've seen at Gracenote that there seems to be a software provider that has something for DJs that only use vinyl recordings.
I can apparently use just the name and the software will propose all options.
Does anyone have experience with this?
Can itunes do this?
Should there be itunes music and library folders in the default C:My documents/my music folder and in the F: or should they be combined or one deleted?
Should I check "keep itunes music folder organized" and "copy files to itunes music folder when adding to library".
And if so, how do I keep from duplicating files which takes up massive space in any drive?
Is wav the best format to use for true Audio file duplication.
If itunes lossless is better, can other media players play the files?
I've search forums and can't seem to find my answers. I have read contradictory informatin and am looking for a clear instruction. I realize that my be difficult based on all the changes that I made but moving forward, I'd like to know the correct proceedures.
I appreciate any help I can get.
charlie
Charlie
Sony VAIO   Windows XP   Maxtor external drive

Answer 1

Well, in my opionion, you've moved things around so much, it would be better to just clear your current iTunes library and rebuild it.
IMPORTANT - I am talking about clearing the iTunes library file, not deleting song files from your hard drive.
I personally never use WAV files, because I like the tags that come with MP3. I'm a pleasure listener - I don't need WAV files for professional reasons.
When I first got iTunes, yeah, I took the default settings and ripped all my CDs in AAC format (they have .m4a file extensions). I regret this, in one way, because they won't work in other Windows applications & other portable devices. But, they sound great on my iPod and don't take up so much drive space as other formats.
edit: I've no idea what you're talking about with the GraceNotes vinyl lookup. AFAIK, you're going to have to re-rip the CDs in a non-WAV format to get the ID3 tags. But you can google to find more info on that.
Message was edited by: Katrina S.