ITunes can't find songs anymore!

All my music is stored on my external HD. I've imported it all in iTunes a few weeks ago and it worked perfectly, BUT THEN...
I turned on my computer with my iPod plugged in but i forgot to turn my HD on. So ofcourse iTunes couldn't find the songs. But now when I do have my HD on it still can't find the songs, it gives a sign next to the names, while they're in the same location as they used to be. I also checked the iTunes library xml file and it gives the right location.
I also still had my library files and program folder saved on the HD so i tried recopying these in the right directions but the problem won't solve.
I've got lots of songs so relocating them one by one won't work for me, also i don't want to reimport it all because then I'll have to change some song names back again and it'll copy everything on my ipod again which takes hours..
Is there any way to solve this?
(btw the songs are all in one folder on the harddrive)
Message was edited by: hanszz

I bet windows changed the exHD letter on you.
Eject the ipod, close itunes, and make sure the exHD letter is whatever it was before this mess happened.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844

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