Is there a way to get itunes to stop defaulting to 'my music?'

Question

This is very frustrating --
I am using an external HD to hold my music library. Smart, right? So occasionally I open itunes without the external drive connected and it just creates a new media folder on my C drive in "My Music." Then I have to go back and manually re-import everything that's on the external drive by dragging it over -- this takes several hours.
So, two questions, really:
1. Is there a way to set a pref that prevents itunes from simply making a new folder if it can't find the library associated with it?
2. Failing that, what is the easiest way to get everything back in one place (already tried 'consolidate' and it put the songs on the external drive, but now they do not show up on itunes even with the library set to look there under 'advanced.')
Thanks!

Answer 1

You can access these properties the same as any other, for example:
tell application "iTunes"
   set someVariable to track 1 of library playlist 1
   tell someVariable
      set theName to name
      set theArtist to album artist
      set theAlbum to album
      set theTime to time
   end tell
end tell
display dialog theName & return & theArtist & return & theAlbum & return & theTime with title "iTunes Info"