Windows 7 -- iTunes won't recognize library on secondary disk

This is long, so please bear with me. I have read many similar threads,
but none quite hit the same problem I have.
I was happily running iTunes 32-bit on Windows XP until a couple of
months ago. Various things (including a different motherboard) forced
my hand into upgrading to Windows 7. Of course, this upgrade requires
you to completely reinstall all applications. I backed up all of my disks
and performed the upgrade to Windows.
I will state right now that the iTunes installation (program itself) is
on one disk, and the library on another. It has been that way for years,
as most of my music is either WAV or AIFF and needs to reside on its
own disk because of storage size.
I dutifully downloaded the latest iTunes version and installed it. Of course,
it defaults music to a directory in the Music folder. I read through a
bunch of threads, and pointed iTunes to the existing upper-level music
library. No dice -- won't acknowledge that library, but also doesn't error.
So I go to my backups and copy the iTunes base files. First to their
original directory (on the secondary disk), but also to the Music folder.
Still nothing. I've tried:
Reinstalling iTunes and copying the base files from backup before running.
Reinstalling iTunes and copying the base files after running the first time.
All variations of above.
I'm willing to try about anything at this point. My music files are safe and,
at 12K songs and 285GB, are not candidates to be moved to the same
disk as the program installation.
Any ideas? Thanks for reading this novella.
Joel

Hello Joel,
Thank you for providing so much information about what is going on. It sounds like you have setup iTunes to save new content to your external hard drive in iTunes>Preferences, but it sounds like iTunes is not opening iTunes Library.itl file on the external drive. You have one last step to take to have iTunes point to your new external hard drive rather than your Music folder:
Steps to create or choose a different iTunes Library file
If iTunes is running, quit iTunes.
If you are using Windows, hold down the Shift key and from the Start menu and choose All Programs > iTunes > iTunes.
You should see the following screen:
Additional information
If you do not see the screen above, then you did not hold the correct key at the correct time. You may want to try again. Note that if you pinned iTunes to the Start menu programs, and open it that way, it may not work.
Once you select "Choose Library," you will need to navigate to the iTunes Library.itl file on your external drive.
You can find the full article here:
iTunes: How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1589
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

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