Synching with library on external drive

I had my ipod running well with all files on an external hard drive. I just had to install a new internal hard drive and I am having the following problems. 1st, when I plu in the ipod I get a message saying that I am synched to another itunes library and I can only be synched to one. 2nd, I can't get itunes to recognize the library on my external drive. So, how do I get the ipod to recognize my library and synch with it? Thanks in advance for your help.

The symptoms you describe correspond to the situation where you have your media on the external drive but the iTunes database (where playlists, ratings, etc. are stored) on the C: drive.  If you can access the old drive, look for the C:\Users\username\Music\iTunes folder, and in particular for the iTunes Library.itl file.  Then see turingtest2's user tip on Make a split library portable for steps necessary to bring your library into a standardized layout - I'd suggest that you aim to have the complete library on the external drive, in this structure:
where you primarily make use of iTunes' consolidation functions to move files and folders into this structure.  Once everything's in place, get a second external drive and use this to create and maintain a backup of your library (much easier with this "well formed" layout since everything you need to backup is in a common folder).

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