ITunes can't find some songs - can anybody help?

(I'm reposting this question because the thread it was in was marked as "Answered" - but it wasn't answered, and nobody was replying.)
My iTunes library was on an external drive, and it was working just fine. Then there were some problems with the external drive, so I bought a new external drive and loaded the entire iTunes library onto it. (I followed Apple's instructions for doing this.)
I set preferences to use the iTunes folder on the new external drive. When I launched iTunes, all the music appears, as do all of the playlists that I created. It looked like everything was OK with the new hard drive - until I looked more closely and saw exclamation points next to some of the songs in my music library.
Here is the problem: iTunes says it "can't find" the locations of about 5% of the songs in my library (that's about 300 songs). Those are the songs with the exclamation points next to them. When I try to play them, iTunes says it can't find the file.
If I click on one of the "lost" songs to try to play it, iTunes presents a dialog box that lets me navigate my way to that song to show iTunes where it is, and then iTunes can play it. Theoretically this is a solution, but I don't want to do that for about 300 songs - it would take hours.
All of the "lost" songs are in my iTunes music folder. There doesn't seem to be anything unusual or unique about the lost songs.
I searched Apple's support pages for help on this, and I searched this forum (iTunes for Mac), and I couldn't find an answer. It looks like a fairly common problem - I see other posts with similar problems, but I haven't seen a solution yet.
Any ideas what causes this? And (more importantly) any suggestions for how to get iTunes to recognize the location of those songs with the exclamation points?

The suggestions that I received didn't solve my problem, but they did result in a duplication of my entire library - and I didn't relish the thought of deleting 6100 duplicate songs, one-by-one. I finally solved both problems by rebuilding the iTunes library. It was pretty easy to do, and it cleaned things up quite well.
There is an Apple tech support document that describes how to do this, but it's a bit hard to find. If you search for "rebuild iTunes library", you won't find it. You have to search for "re-create iTunes library" with a hyphen stuck in the middle of the word recreate. Then you will find this link...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1451
...which guides you step-by-step through the process of rebuilding the iTunes library. This got rid of duplicates, it re-established broken links, and it found a few songs that for some reason had not been in the previous library.

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ITunes Can't find Some Songs?

Hey guys - I had my Ext HD damaged and had to get a new one. I had my library and everything else important backed up (I keep all files on an ext HD to keep my computer HD free of crap). I didn't lose anything. When I opened iTunes and directed it to my new location it failed to find about 1/3 of my library. It looks like all of my data including ratings, play counts, etc are all there. The only issue is when I get to a song it can't find I have to manually direct it back to that file. What confuses me is it had no problem with songs in the same album, so they are in the same file. It seems very arbitrary as to what it did and did not locate.
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I had the exact same problem. My iTunes library was on an external drive. It was working just fine. Then there were some problems with the external drive, so I got a new external drive and loaded the entire iTunes library onto it.
I used iTunes preferences to direct it to the iTunes folder on the new external drive. Then I pressed the Option key while starting up iTunes to also redirect it to the iTunes folder on the external because (for reasons I can't fathom) setting the folder location in preferences wasn't enough.
I have the same problem as zblom (original poster) - but only with about 5% of the songs in my library. About 95% of my songs have no problem. But there's an exclamation point next to about 5% of them, and when I try to play them, iTunes says it can't find the file. I've navigated my way to a few of the songs and then iTunes can find it. But I don't want to do that for about 300 songs - that would take hours.
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I purchased several songs on an authorized computer quite awhile back (more than a year ago) and I no longer have access to that computer. Some (not all) of the songs purchased from the other computer are not in my library on this machine. I'm inclined to think that I did put them on this machine because most of the purchases from the old computer are here, however, I can't be 100% positive that I transferred ALL the music. Based on what I've read, Itunes only allows you to download a song once, but at this point, repurchasing the music is not an option. When I go to the Itunes store and look up the desired songs, they show "purchased" and I can't buy them again. Most of the time, for me, there's something very simple that I'm just overlooking and I'm hoping that's the case here. Any suggestions on how to retrieve the missing songs would be greatly appreciated.
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Thank you for the reply.
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OK, so I'm clearly a newb. I thought if I asked a question, it would post, and now I'm being told to post a comment, so I'm asking the same question again. Sorry I sound like an idiot. I'm new to this apple/mac stuff.
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