Moving iTunes library from old imac to new iMac

Hi all
don't know if this the right forum - looked the iTunes forum and there was a similar question unanswered. It's a weird one and I can't work out what's going on.
My wife has just bought a G5 iMac (intel) and I'm helping her move her iTunes music over from her old G4. I've backed up her Music folder on to a portable hard drive using Personal Backup. The full Music folder is on the drive (checked before ejecting).
When I connect the hard drive to the new iMac and open the iTunes library half her songs are missing. I eject the the hard drive and she transfers a few more songs on to her new computer from her iPod. When I reconnect the hard drive and run iTunes - the additional songs are there. We try a few more using the iPod and - hey presto - her library is growing. It's still not complete though.
Each time we connect the hard drive and run iTunes we see the additional songs. But not her full library - even though I know it's on the hard drive. (went back and plugged into the old iMac to make sure. Hope all this making sense).
What seems to be happening is that opening the iTunes library from the portable hard drive only ever shows what's on the computer hard drive. (The new computer is authorised).
There must be something simple that I'm missing. Any help would be really appreciated.
Ian

Hi Ian,
If you wanted the library on the external HD I would have directly copied the iTunes folder from the old computer to the HD, then replaced the iTunes folder in the Music folder of the new machine with a shortcut to the folder on the HD. Should have worked fine. The other option would have been to simply copy from the external HD to the Music folder on the new machine.
Backup software isn't always all that helpful in some of these situations.
Karn.

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http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/25/how-to-take-ownership-and-grant-permiss ions-in-windows-vista/

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I just got a shiny new Mac, and don't want to lose my music library!
No need! iTunes for Windows is almost exactly identical to iTunes for Mac, and switching over is actually very easy.
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<hr>
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With a lot of help from DC

Moving iTunes library from old imac to new iMac

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