Lightroom 3 Can't Find My Images

I use several external hard drives for my images and they occasionally get moved either to another folder or to another hard drive.  When this happens, Lightroom can't find the image so I go to the image in its new location and Lightroom finds it and all its neighbors.  That worked great in Lightroom 2 but does not work at all in Lightroom 3.  I can't change the original file folder structure at all.  Lightroom can't find the image even though I'm clicking on it.  Then I try to click a bit harder and eventually start pounding on the keyboard and shouting at Lightroom, "It's right here!"  Any suggestions or bug knowledge regarding this?
Thanks,
Richard

brianbotticelli wrote:
If you right click on the folder in the navigator and choose Update Folder Location, this will not work in LR3 running Mac OS 10.6.4.
This should definitely work! What is happening if you do that, and what are your detailed steps?
... Also, if you right click on an image thumbnail and choose Show in Finder, then reset your image path from the dialogue box, this will not work either.
As noted here, this seems to be a bug.
Beat Gossweiler
Switzerland
Edit:
If you move an entire folder from outside LR, you should get a "?" right next to the folder, and the option "Update Folder Location" is not availble, but "Find missing Folder". If you only move some images from one folder to another, "Update Folder Location" is not the correct way to go.
Message was edited by: b_gossweiler

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