ITunes suddenly cannot find any of my music (but I see it!!)

So all of my music (the entire library, including the library and xml files) are sitting on an external USB 2.0 drive, in this location:
e:/ITUNES/library
the xml and itl file is sitting at e:/ITUNES/
In advanced itunes preferences, my itunes library is set to stay organized, copy new music when opened in itunes, and the music folder is set to e:/ITUNES/library
All of the sudden, itunes can't find any of my music. I've tried to restart, no luck. I took a look in the XML file, and it is pointing at the G:/ drive instead of E for some reason (I don't even have a G drive!). I did a replace all with programmer's notepad (G:/ to E:/), but no luck. And when I re-open the xml file the next time, it's all back to G again....
any ideas??
Thanks

Your music will only be where you put it.
It has always been very basic to always maintain a backup copy.  Have you failed to do this?
If for some reason you have failed to back up, then you can redownload some itunes purchases in some countries:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store

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