Imported Songs Won't Play in iTunes, but will on iPod

I recently imported many songs from a hard drive into my iTunes library. I then updated my iPod with these additions. The songs play on my iPod but will not play in iTunes, or allow me to create a playlist containing these songs. I get a message saying that "the song _______ could not be used because the original file could not be found."
When I reconnect the hard drive, the songs play, but when it is disconnected, they won't. I tried to "authorize computer", but that didn't do anything.
Any suggestions for how to fix this issue?
Thanks.

Are you saying you have music on an external drive and it won't play if the drive is not plugged in?
You are not very clear with your question, but I wonder if you tried to add them to your library on your internal drive. If so take a look at:
Edit>Preferences>Advanced>General
Is "Copy files to Itunes Music folder when adding to library" checked? If not the songs would be left on the external drive.
If this is the case, you could plug in your external drive and then consolidate your library. This will copy ALL files not in your iTunes Music folder into the iTunes Music folder.
If you intentionally keep some of your music outside the iTunes Music folder you may want to think about the implications before using Consolidate.

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Imported Songs Won't Play in iTunes, but will on iPod

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