iPod Moving library to an external drive

I have found that the best way to move the library is to reindex it. Create a new folder in the new location and point itunes to it. Delete all the music from itunes. (not the files of course, just the info in iTunes) than re-import everything. YOu lose your play counts and stuff, but is that really that big of a deal?

yes it will mess up the artwork. I was actually just about to post a similar thread. I too am trying to run my itunes library from an external drive. I created an itunes folder on the drive and then directed itunes to that folder. I then consolidated my library, at which time iTunes advised met that "this will copy all of your music into your iTunes library, this process cannot be undone." Well, it copied some of my music, but the rest has !'s next to it. From a quick google search, this seems to be a very common problem. I followed the instructions on apple's site (as many other's have) and it simply doesn't seem to work. Very disappointing. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

note, I still have the original library saved on my internal drive.