Several itl files - itunes process runs but itunes wont open

Question

This is a little complicated and I have now run into several related issues.  This all started a few weeks ago when  I attempted to move my itunes library from one external hard drive to a new and larger external hard drive on my windows vista PC.  I copied/transfered all of what was on the older driver onto the new drive.  That's fine and dandy.  I also at the time did some maintenance removing old music folders and itunes library files from several years of use. I had all kinds of duplicate music files (that got copied over at the same time) and a horde of dead links and playlists too.  Very messy.  In short my library had become unmanageable a long time ago, its size of close to 500 gigs.
Everything copied over and itunes opened and worked okay. 
However problems have now happened after (and it may be coincidental) loading the latest version of iTunes.  And at the same time using several programs to attempt to find and delete duplicates, fix playlists, located files and dead tracks etc.  These included "iTunes Library Tool Kit" and duplicate file finder, plus Steve MacGuire's vbs scripts.
It all came to a head now when the other day iTunes would open (you can see the process running in TaskManager) but the window would not open.  Basically I followed http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1717.  And it seems to have fixed the "not opening" issue.  However.  Before going through and recreating my library I realize I have several itl files and several xml files and all kinds of dead or old itunes music files. 
So I guess I'm asking .... is there some way of going back to square one?  Scrubbing any and all history of iTunes, and having iTunes recreate my library as if my PC was new to Apple and iTunes? 
If so what is my best approach?  Should I erase old folders and files first? 
I've attached an example of what I found after searching for .itl files.  (lines 2 - 5 were moved to the desktop)  thats where they still reside, but I stopped and posted this inquiry before doing anything else. 
Don't know if it matters I have my library also located in iCloud.

Answer 1

Hi there. If you want a clean start I'd suggest you shift-start iTunes and create a new empty library at F\iTunes, make sure the media folder under Edit > Preferences > Advanced is set to F:\iTunes\iTunes Media and the options to Keep... & Copy... are enabled. I'd then move the existing media inside the iTunes Media folder before adding it to iTunes. Either use the Automatically Add to iTunes folder or move everything deeper inside, e.g. F:\iTunes\iTunes Media\Imports so that once iTunes has imported everything and moved it to where it thinks it belongs you can easily clean up any artwork, playlist files etc. that iTunes ignores.
Note that a clean start like this will lose all ratings, play counts, playlists, date added information, and if you have any devices may mean that all media needs to be resynced. Chances are the media folders may still contain duplicates but these can be cleaned using my DeDuper script.
Take a look at this backup tip... Ideally you would backup what you have before you get started, just in case you get over enthusiastic at some point, then redo the backup once you have the rebuilt library working as you want it.
tt2