iTunes reconnecting music files that were moved to new external HDD

[borffmann]

i had my entire iTunes library, about 150GB of music files, stored on an external hard drive that was starting act wonky. so i bought a new hard drive and copied all the music folders onto that new hard drive. but now iTunes doesn't recognize all those files in the new location. how do i reconnect my iTunes library to this new hard drive? unfortunately, i've already deleted the old music files from the old hard drive so hopefully i don't need to do something with that.
thanks!

 

[Consultant]

There are a number of ways covered almost daily.

Mac
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449

PC
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364

 

[borffmann]

still didn't work

i tried that but i'm still not reconnecting. i think the problem is that the original files that iTunes is trying to access, when it does a reconsolidate, are not there anymore. i've already deleted the original music files from the old hard drive, after i did a manual "click and drag" copy of all the music files and their folders to the new hard drive. am i going to need to "select all" in the music library in iTunes, and delete all those music references (in iTunes, not the actual music files) and then do a full new "add to library" of all the music files that are now on the new hard drive? and if so, is that going to make me lose all my playlists?

 

[mstrze]

If you manually copied over your files and deleted the originals you will certainly lose you playlists and ratings and the like.

There is one hope: Re-copy the iTunes library back to its original location on the old drive and then follow the above instructions, allowing iTunes to consolidate and copy over your files instead of doing it manually (the 'wrong' way).