Old Itunes library (from PC) on external hard drive - Mac won't recognise

I feel like I've tried absolutely everything, so hopefully someone here can help.
I had my Itunes library stored on an external disc. This was when I was using Itunes on a PC. It all ran fine....
Now we've upgraded to a Mac and for the life of me I cannot get Itunes to recognise the library.
First I just tried changing the folder location with no luck. Now I've tried holding down alt when starting Itunes, I've located the folder, and at first it seemed all was well as the albums (sans artwork) all appeared in Itunes. But when I try to play them or send songs to my Iphone, it says it can't locate the file. I've tried to then manually point it to the external drive and the old library and it still won't recognise it.
Can anyone suggest anything??

AnnieeR wrote:
Can anyone suggest anything??
these two reads may be helpful: one and two.

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