Time Machine backup of iTunes didn't - folders are almost all empty.....

Posted this in the iTunes forum as that's what I'm trying to restore using Time Machine, but thought I'd try here too
Here's what happened....
Having a small hard drive on my old but current eMac and running out of room I decided to move my iTunes library to my external Lacie drive (with over 80 gb free)
I checked the Apple documents for what to do and was reminded to make a backup
I ran a last back up to Time Machine, which I have used a few times for document recovery and know that it works and how to use it, and then set up my new destination folder on the Lacie and deleted my iTunes library from its original location.
Now when I go into Time Machine, and no I didn't exclude anything from being being backed up, I can find the iTunes library, and the folders with each named artist, but every folder is empty, there are no music files. (Or rather there is one named 'Unknown Album' and a sub directory called 'Unknown Artist' which has a small selection of unamed audio)
Each iTunes Music folder is at about 800mb - the unnamed audio mentioned above
I have gone all the way back (though I have not opened every backup yet) to October 2007 when I did the first Time Machine backup on installing Leopard, and every backup I have explored has empty artist folders.
'Find' also seems to work only in a limited way with the TM files - a search for 'Music' for example should logically find every 'Music' folder back to the start of TM but doesn't even though I can find them manually in each backup
Does anyone have any ideas of where or whether there might be a full backup; even from October 2007 would be better than nothing! I 'only' had about 9gb of audio, though some is custom, one off work.
My basic assumption here is that the first TM backup would have backed up everything and then only alterations and additions as they occurred
Thanks so much in advance
Stephen

Death By Media and Kiraly
Thanks so much for the ideas and suggestions - no libraries were excluded, hmmm, and only one user account....
Do I have an iPod with the songs on it?
Well I can still see all the items I have lost in Music in iTunes (all of which come up with an exclamation mark and a 'can't find, do you want to locate the library' message...) so I know what went missing
I do have a 1st generation shuffle with some tracks on it, and some burnt CDs, and some Downloads which were saved by Time Machine
Of the 9GB or so about 6GB were from CDs or vinyl that I own so no huge deal - though the vinyl takes so much time doesn't it
1GB was almost everything by a favourite artist of which about 30% were rare recordings, live shows etc (*all legal downloads I must add*) which took lots of time to find, and convert etc
Then the recordings of conferences and presentations which are irreplaceable
Then there are the 250 or so purchased songs from iTunes which I really don't want to have to buy again.....
Any other ideas where at least the original archive created by Time Machine might be hiding...?
Thanks again
Stephen
Message was edited by: Mobilizing Mouse

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