Moving iTunes folder to an external drive.  How ?

My pBook 17" is bloated with iPhoto PICS and iTunes music store purchases. Moving the photo library, and running it off of the LACIE external FW 800 drive was easy. Not with iTunes. I moved the entire iTunes folder to the external, but every time I launch iTunes on the PBook it opens a blank library. How do I get iTunes to recognize the library on the external HD, without a lose of date added, etc. Apple Care was no help, and had no answer. BTW, after erasing the iTunes library from my PB HD, and moving the library back to the PB, everything works as normal. The iTunes library is 10 gB in size BTW.
thanks in advance, rick

It's not hard to overlook something obvious, happens to me too once in a while, so let's start from scratch.
Forget the KB article for know. I just performed all the steps in it on a 'test' account with a small (test) library, and could not detect any anomalies.
The article is OK, but might not be 100% clear (I second William's remark)
Steps to do:
• Quit iTunes (and other applications that use the EHD)
• Unmount and disconnect your external HD.
• Run iTunes and verify that you can play all music. If OK, then it has to be on the Powerbook. If you are presented with exclamation marks, it was already on the EHD.
• You've consolidated the Library a couple of times now, so it should be all together in ~Users/YourUsername/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music.
• Connect your EHD
• In iTunes, change the 'iTunes Music folder location' to the location on your EHD, where you want the music to be. To be sure, create a new folder.
• Now 'Consolidate Library...' again. iTunes will start copying the music. If it doesn't, I'll eat my hat (to be honest, I don't have a hat).
Let know what happens.
M
17' iMac fp 800 MHz 768 MB RAM   Mac OS X (10.3.9)   Several ext. HD (backup and data)

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