Problem with Shift to New External Drive for iTunes

Hi,
I hope I can explain this clearly. I currently have all my music files on an external drive however the iTunes Library files, xml, etc are on my laptop. The external drive is running out of space so I simply got another external put the same exact music files on there but am having trouble getting iTunes to read from this new location. Is there a way to simply get the computer to read from this new file WITHOUT copying all the files over via changing the Media Folder Location and using the Library>Organize Library>Consolidate function? That seems ridiculous when I already have the files on the external drive and I'm worried that they will somehow be altered in the copying process.
I also like to have my iTunes Library files on my hard drive but is it better to have them with the music on the external drive?
I hope that makes sense and thanks in advance for the help, I simply couldn't find anything on here that quite describes that problem.
JP

OK, not having a Mac I keep forgeting details. See this support document for how to use Option to open an alternate library.
Can I just confirm that you've already copied your existing media from External/Music/iTunes to
New?External/Music/iTunes without changing the layout of any of the subfolders inside. If so then we should be good to go. While there are quite a few steps the aim is to avoid recopying any files that are already where they need to be and make sure that your playlists, playcounts and other meta-data remains intact.
1. Copy the *Album Artwork* folder and the files *iTunes Library, iTunes Library Extras.itdb, iTunes Library Genius.itdb & sentinel* from <User>/Music/iTunes/ to External/Music/. Ignore the XML file, it would get a new name in this location and will be recreated automatically.
2. Start iTunes, pressing Option until prompted to choose or create a libray. Chose the library at External/Music/.
3. Check that the media plays. Check under *Edit > Preferences > Advanced* that the location of the media folder reads as External/Music/iTunes.
4. Close iTunes.
5. Copy the *Album Artwork* folder and the files *iTunes Library, iTunes Library Extras.itdb, iTunes Library Genius.itdb & sentinel* from External/Music/ to New?External/Music/. Again, ignore the XML file.
6. Use Option-Start iTunes to open the new library at New?External/Music/.
7. Check that the media plays and that under *Edit > Preferences > Advanced* that the location of the media folder now reads as New?External/Music/iTunes/.
8. Close iTunes, rename the folder New?External/Music/iTunes/ as *New?External/Music/iTunes Media/*.
9. Start iTunes. Check that the media plays and that under *Edit > Preferences > Advanced* that the location of the media folder now reads as *New?External/Music/iTunes Media*.
10. Close iTunes, rename the folder New?External/Music/ as New?External/iTunes/.
11. Use Option-Start iTunes to open the library at New?External/iTunes/.
12. Check that the media plays and that under *Edit > Preferences > Advanced* that the location of the media folder now reads as *New?External/iTunes/iTunes Media/*.
13. You should now be able to use *File > Library > Organize Library... > Consolidate files* to consolidate any files left behind in *<User>/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/* that you weren't able to consolidate to your old external drive.
14. If you haven't already done so then you should also select the option *File > Library > Organize Library... > Re-organize files in the folder "iTunes Media"*. If the option is greyed out then you have already upgraded to "iTunes Media Organization".
15. Rename the folder <User>/Music/iTunes/ as *<User>/Music/Old iTunes/*. Now if you ever start iTunes without connecting the external first iTunes will complain that it can't find the library instead of silently switching to the old internal one. This is likely to lead to less confusion in the long run.
16. Backup... You should get another drive big enough to hold everything so you have a backup copy for disaster recovery. Now that everything is organisized sensibly you just need to copy the iTunes folder from one external drive to another to back it up or better yet locate a folder syncing tool so that only new & changed files need to be copied across when you back up.
tt2

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