Sure this has been asked 1,000 times - iTunes lost music

[klouud]

Hi guys,

INFO:

CPU: hp a6300t
OS: Vista 32x
iTunes: 9.0.3.15

The problem:

I just upgraded from iTunes version whatever to 9.0.3.15. Everything was working only a few minutes ago... now that I upgraded, iTunes can't find my music.

Error Message:

...could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?

Trouble Shooting:

I tried overwriting the USER/MUSIC/ITUNES - ".itl, itdb, .xml, and sentinel" files to an earlier version but the problem persisted... so I restored to my most current version of those files.

I know that I can manually find my songs... but there are 13,503 songs in my Library!!!

I corrected the problem for 1 of the songs to see if the problem would correct itself... it did not work.

Other Info:

I recently have been messing around with OSX86, Vista, and XP installs on separate HDD's- I unplug each HDD when installing a new OS. I also used EasyBCD 1.7.2 to create a bootloader in Vista so I can boot from whatever OS I want.

I have a desktop icon for my external HDD (no OS installed on it). I noticed today that the icon would not work - It says drive "J" can not be found... but the External is drive "L".

I tried ejecting it and plugging it into other USB ports but it still reads as drive "L".

I changed the target for the desktop icon to "L" and that fixed the problem with the icon but not the iTunes problem...

Theories:

I would just wipe the Music Library and import everything again... but I don't know if all of my modifications to the songs will still be there...

ie: I cleaned up the names of songs/albums/genres and added artwork. I did not allow iTunes to manage my music and I did not create AAC's...

All music is still in MP3 format and sitting on an external HDD.

What should I do? FOR THE LOVE OF PETE HELP!!

tim

[EDIT] - just tried to change drive path of "L" to "J" - "J" is not available... it is being used by an empty removable drive...

[EDIT 2] - Friggin YES!! I changed "J" to "Z" and then was able to change "L" to "J"!!!! I changed the target of my desktop icon to "J" and launched iTunes. Everything That I had added today was gone, but all my old songs work!!!

I hope this can help anyone else that has this problem! YEAH BABY!!

tim