Multiple Hard Drives and One Library...is it possible?

this is a repost, my last post got jacked.
Hi, I've been doing some looking around here already for a good solution, but have yet to find it, including some of the existing threads dealing with similar issues.
So here is my scenario: Laptop with a hard drive that is almost full, need to move two thirds to an external drive, however I need to maintain the integrity of the whole library (current playlists, playcounts etc), none of this option key launching stuff, and separate libraries. My concerns, with doing some initial testing, is that itunes still asks for the location of the music files when they have been moved to another drive, I don't want to and shouldn't have to re-locate each file individually (30+gbs). It seems like I either have to do one thing or the other can't do both. Move everything and re-direct it to the new location and re-import to the local drive, or go the option click route which I don't really want to (and I would lose some of my library info in the process). Is what I'm asking to do even possible with the constraints of splitting an existing library of music, with one library file & multiple drives?
Thanks for any info or help.
iMac 17 1ghz G4 1.25gb ram / iBook 1.25ghz G4 768mb ram   Mac OS X (10.4.6)  

You can check/change the permissions on the library folder in the Finder-File>GetInfo window. Set Group and Others to Read&Write.

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