Starting from scratch with external drive

I've just clean installed Snow Leopard after too much trouble with Lion, I've got an external drive with a load of songs which I'd like to use with iTunes but I don't want these copied to my internal drive - I'm happy to have the external drive connected for iTunes use - I've changed the iTunes media folder to the one on my external drive but it hasn't recognised the songs - what else do I need to do without ending up with duplicates of every song?.... Basically I'd simply like to use the external drive like a huge iPod!

Thanks John and Jolly,
I'm not sure what I'm doing here. I thought I did what you suggested and I tried to read that article but ...
What I have:
* Laptop with iTunes 9.0.3 running OS X 10.4.11 that has not had any prior music or other iTunes content.
* An external HD with a copy of the music from my desktop (160 GB). My desktop is also running iTunes 9 and OS X 190.4.11.
On the HD there is a folder "iTunes." That folder contains:
"Album Artwork" folder,
"Automatically Add to iTunes" folder,
"iTunes Library" file,
"iTunes Library Extras.itdb" file,
"iTunes Library Genius.itdb" file,
"iTunes Library.xml" file
"itunes music" folder,
"iTunes Music Library.xml" file,
"Previous iTunes Libraries" folder,
"Temp File.tmp" file
What I did:
* Plugged in the external so it shows up in my finder
* Launched iTunes and working through the setup was asked some sort of question like "do you want to copy files now or do it yourself later?" I clicked I'd do it myself.
* Went to iTunes / Preferences / Advanced and changed the iTunes Media folder location. It now shows "/volumes/'name of External HD'/iTunes" The "keep iTunes Media folder organized" box is checked and so is the "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" box. I hit OK.
* Went to iTunes / File / Library / Organize Library ... and I clicked the "Consolidate files" box but not the "Upgrade to iTunes Media organization" box.
* now in iTunes I have nothing in "Music" -- a screen telling me songs and videos I add ... and there are none of my folders or playlists.
I bet I'm one click from blast off but no idea what that step might be.
Any ideas?
Thanks

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jayessemm wrote:
So how do I tell iTunes to only look to the external? How do I get rid of the old stuff I have on the internal that is offering duplicates and phantom entries? Do I need to delete iTunes and then download a new copy? Should I delete the iTunes foilder? ...?
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