Keywords not Importing

I have an archive of about 150Gb of images , mostly DNG's that I have imported into LR (referencing them in their original location, an external HD). Some keywords didn't import (I applied the keywords in Bridge/CS3); if I select the "import keywords" option in LR I can't find any files LR will allow me to select...?
Where are the keywords, how to I update them?
Thanks for any help,
Alan.

Caroline,
I imported all my images the normal way (selected "import" and then selected the ext Hard Drive with all my images). I set it up so my images are being referenced at their location by Lightroom ("Import photos at their current location").
The keywords didn't import so I selected all images in Lightroom library, went to (in Lightroom file menu) Metadata> XMP> Import metadata from files and it imported the keywords (you could walk the dog while this is going on...).
I'm sure there is a way to import without this two step process but I didn't get any responses to the first message, so this was the best solution I could come up with!
Alan.

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