I'VE HAD IT WITH iTUNES- Moved library, now "songs cannot be found"

Question

I have HAD IT with itunes. Apple NEEDS TO FIX PROBLEMS RELATING TO ERRORS WHILST MOVING THE MUSIC LIBRARY. "the original file could not be found" seems to be an all too common error.
I'm using snow leopard, and have an external hard-drive, which has my music library stored on it. I plug in the drive whenever I listen to music. The drive had an error and I was forced to copy the entire music folder to a separate drive, format the drive, then move the music folder back.
I kept the path to the music folder the same, the files the same, and even the name of the drive the same. I opened itunes and in 'advanced' I selected the new itunes music folder location. I figured that it would be fine, as everything was the same as before.
WRONG.
Now, 2/3 of the songs cannot be found when I try and play them. This happens every time I move my library, even when following Apple's step-by-step instructions!!!
I have just clicked "consolidate library" but now I fear that I will have thousands of duplicates, or worse the songs still won't be recognised.
HELP, PLEASE
<Edited by Host>

Answer 1

That setting in Advanced doesn't tell iTunes where to find your library, that setting tells iTunes where to put files when you import them. I'm not well versed on the Consolidation function and what that they may have done. I can say that what you should have done was launch iTunes while holding down the option key and navigate to where the library is located is prompted. I suppose you could do that now...but I'm not sure if you might already have dupes from consolidating. If so, you could check for Corral Dupes, a script over at Doug's Scripts, get rid of the dupes, then follow the launch with option key step.