PC to Mac with external drive as main library

I recently switched from PC (Dell Inspiron) to Mac (MacBook) and am having some serious difficulties getting my iTunes to cooperate.
I used an external drive as my main iTunes library on my PC. I would like to continue doing this with my new Mac because my library is quite large. I know it is not as simple as pointing to the folder on the external HD from within the Mac. I have read all the posts out there and none of the address my issue specifically.
To reiterate, I currently am using an external HD with my PC that contains my iTunes library. I am now using my Macbook as my main computer and want to continue using the same external drive because my library is too large to import to the internal HD. How do I get the iTunes on my MacBook to read (point to?) the external drive where all of my media (music, podcasts, TV, Movies, Games, etc) reside without losing any information and/or files?
Please help...thanks!
Brian

I pretty much did the same thing (switched from PC to Mac) and had the same issue and this is how I set it:
go to preferences then click on the advanced tab, then on general
then for the folder just click 'change' and set it to be what your folder with all your music is on (on the external). I unchecked the 'copy files to itunes music folder...' as well (not sure this is needed, but didn't want to experiment it copying everything again)
then I went to File > Add to Library, selected the same folder and done. It will take a bit as it goes through the whole library. I guess after this you could go back to preferences and check that copy to itunes folder so any future additions get put on the external.
I hope that helps.

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