Problems moving library from old external drive to new one

I keep all my music on an external hard drive connected to my laptop at home. I am now spending several months away from home, and couldn't take my external drive with me.
I planned to handle this by using iTunes backup feature to put my whole library on DVD, then buy a new external hard drive to take with me, and sse iTunes backup feature to rebuild the library on the new external HDD.
However, I can't get the library to restore/re-load/re-import from the backup DVDs. The iTunes backup/restore instructions tell you to open iTunes then insert the backup DVD. When I do that, I get the following error message:
"The Disc "Backup2007-07-09" cannot be read. An unknown error occurred (-69)."
However, I can read the DVD using just going through My Computer, so I really don't believe it's a problem with the disc.
So, if this backup method isn't working, how can I re-create my library on the new hard drive? I have dozens and dozens of playlists, a lot of them smart playlists that depend on such things as play count, rating, and date added, so i really need to keep all my tags.
I thought of two possible work-arounds.
Plan A: Copy all the music myself (ie, not using iTunes) onto the new external hard drive, using the same filename and path as they had on the old external hard drive, then import the Library.itl file that's on the backup DVD (manually copying over the default one created by iTunes).
Would that work? The big annoyance of this plan, I should add, is that, looking at the files on the backup DVD, i can see that iTunes added a number behind each folder name (ie, "01 Al Green") and behind each album title (ie, "01 Al Green - Greatest Hits"). It seems to me I would have to go through and manually delete all the numerals in both artist and album names in order for the .itl file to point to the right place. That would take hours...
Plan B: (Really not a great plan, but I'm grasping here...)
Give up on the backup altogether. Keep adding music and podcasts to my library as is. All my music that is sitting on my far, far away home HDD will get the exclamation point next to it in iTunes. Then, when i try to sync the ipod, if i'm thinking this through right, iTunes will go ahead and add the new stuff to my ipod, but all the old stuff will just not copy over, and then at the end of syncing i'll get the error message to the effect of "itunes didn't copy song x because the file could not be found." This option is far from ideal, as my playlists won't update, but at least i'll still have the playlists.
Do either of these sound like they would work?
Any other suggestions?
Any help would be very much appreciated.

If you can you connect both external drives to the computer at the same time, it would be easier to use the "Consolidate Library" utility in iTunes to move (actually copy) your media to the new drive.
1- Open iTunes preferences and select the Advanced tab. Change the location of your iTunes music folder to a location on your new drive. Also select the options "Keep iTunes music folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library". Close the preferences dialog.
2- On the iTunes menu, select Advanced/Consolidate Library. This will gather all your media and copy it to the new location (the folder you designated in step 1).
3- After the consolidation is complete, verify that your music still plays, and check "Get Info" on some items to verify that iTunes is looking at the new location.
4- Optional. Delete the original files on your external drive. Do this only if you are certain that everything copied over to the new drive.
5- Optional. Close iTunes and locate your "iTunes Library.itl" file. This is typically in your iTunes folder, which may be on your computer's drive and not the external drive. Move this file to somewhere on your new external drive. Next, hold the Shift key as you launch iTunes and you'll be prompted to "Create Library" or "Choose Library". Select "Choose Library" and navigate to where you put the "iTunes Library.itl" file. This is a one-time step that tells iTunes where to boot the library from.

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tonybassplayer wrote:
Thank Chris I have just done that. How do I now get them in to Itunes ?
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tonybassplayer wrote:
Thank Chris I have just done that. How do I now get them in to Itunes ?
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