Hello all,

I would really appreciate any insight into my issue. I know it's a tired subject but I couldn't find a solution in my forum searches.

I have been running my iTunes library from and external HD. My iTunes folder still resided on my laptop hard drive, just the actual music was on the HD.

Last weekend I repartitioned my hard drive and reinstalled Vista. Before doing that I moved my entire my documents folder to my external drive. After reinstalling Vista & iTunes I went to preferences and pointed iTunes to the new location for my music (the addition of the partition changed the drive letter of my external HD) then I moved the old .XML and .ITL files into the new installed iTunes folder. Now just doing this results in nothing, no library comes up nothing happens. I've read that consolidation tells iTunes were the files are when you move them but this is a new install and I have nowhere to move them too. I also read posts about modifying the XML file to reflect the new location of the library but that didn't do anything either. I can import the entire library from iTunes but it just makes a new .XML and .ITL file and therefore I get no play counts etc. I did try to re copy my old .XML and .ITL files into the itunes folder after the import but that did not work either.

Anyone have any suggestions at all?

Thanks in advance.
=============
I would think (but have not tried) that if you used iTunes Backup to Disc feature in the old location, and restored with iTunes pointing to the new location it would work.

I could be wrong though.
=============