ITunes not recognizing previous library after System Recovery

Hi - My computer was recently infected with some very nasty malware and the only sure way to clear it was to perform a complete wipe and restore to factory settings. I have always kept my iTunes music folder on an external drive so I assumed the files would be safe.
Once the system was reset and secure, I downloaded iTunes. When I 1st clicked on it, iTunes searched my computer for music and found only the few files that come with Microsoft Media Player because I had not yet connected my external drive. Tonight I plugged in the drive with all my music and changed the location of my iTunes Music Folder to its previous location on the external drive under the Advanced tab in Preferences, but iTunes isn't recognizing my original library.
I checked the Help in iTunes and tried connecting my iPod to see if that would trigger recognition of my library. Instead, it said my iPod was synched to another library and gave me the option of wiping it and synching with the (now empty) new library or only synching purchases from the iPod to the new library. Since my iPod is only synched with a fraction of my files, it seemed like this still would get me nowhere so I exited without doing anything.
So, how can I get my original library back? All of the files are right there on the drive. I should note that I also have an iPhone 3G which hasn't been synched since my PC was 1st infected 4 weeks ago. Should I uninstall iTunes and dowload it again now that my external drive containing all the files is connected? Thanks in advance for your help with this. - Scott

I haven't made any headway on my specific problem, but have seen many other posts on moving libraries from one PC to another or saving them to external drives before a reformat. I should add that the nature of the infection on PC was so severe that it was feared it would jump to (and then hide) in any external hard drive or flash drive so it could then re-infect any clean system. Because of this, I was unable to copy the original .itl file from my C drive before it was wiped. So, what I have now is the external drive which was the location of my iTunes Music folder as well as my iPhone Photo Cache and iPhone photos. I have a 40 gig iPod with all of my original playlists and a portion of my music (I only synched certain songs to manage space). I also have my iPhone 3G with a few of those same playlists as well as my applications. SO, the question is, can I rebuild my library from what I've got? If so, how? I've been searching for answers, but none seem to approximate my problem so any help is appreciated. Thanks - Scott

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Hi Jim,
Thank you for your reply to my posting about iTunes not recognizing my iPod Touch after upgrading to Leopard.
iPods & Finder. Some other postings incorrectly lead me to believe that the iPod would show up in the "Finder". Thanks for setting me straight on this.
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I've written this as a reply to the thread below as well - but as it seems more than just our friend below has this problem I've also posted this as a separate post
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I have - like many of you, suffered through this frustrating process of Windows recognizing the Nano and yet iTunes not recognizing it, and after some research I think I may have found a solution (perhaps not THE solution).
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http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93716
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My iPod Touch is also not shown in the Finder. However, it does show up as recognized in iPhoto.
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Thanks to a posting by Jim in a different Apple Discussions (forum), my problem is now resolved. Read on for the details.
iPods & Finder. Some other postings incorrectly lead me to believe that the iPod would show up in the "Finder". Jim's posting set me straight on this.
iTunes Not Recognizing iPod Touch. Prior to Jim's posting, I had already read the article that Jim referenced (to remove and reinstall the Apple Mobile Device Service per article "http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1747").
Prior to Jim's posting, I had also read other articles in various "Apple Discussions" (forums) that suggested this recognition problem could be resolved by uninstalling/re-installing iTunes 8.0.2. Some implied that you could just re-install iTunes 8.0.2 right over the currently installed one without bothering to uninstall it.
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Hi Jim,
Thank you for your reply to my posting about iTunes not recognizing my iPod Touch after upgrading to Leopard.
iPods & Finder. Some other postings incorrectly lead me to believe that the iPod would show up in the "Finder". Thanks for setting me straight on this.
iTunes Not Recognizing iPod Touch. Prior to your posting, I had already read the article you referenced (to remove and reinstall the Apple Mobile Device Service per article "http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1747").
Prior to your posting, I had also read other articles in various "Apple Discussions" (forums) that suggested this recognition problem could be resolved by uninstalling/re-installing iTunes 8.0.2. Some implied that you could just re-install iTunes 8.0.2 right over the currently installed one without bothering to uninstall it.
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