iTunes library file help

Factual Questions
#1

Ok, this is kinda frustrating. I have all my iTunes media on an external drive, and I THOUGHT I had the library file there as well. I do have some previous versions on there, the most recent being from last October.

My machine died last week and I’m setting up a new one now, but I wiped the internal hard drives and reinstalled Windows. Apparently, at some point iTunes probably looked for the library on the external drive and perhaps it wasn’t connected and so I’m guessing created a new one on the system drive which I guess it continued to use from that point on. (does this sound right?).

This is a real pain mostly because of my podcasts. The music library I can easily rebuild, but I follow many podcasts by subscription and I delete them as I go.

First question - when I reinstall iTunes now (haven’t done it yet), if it rebuilds my library (or if I use the October version), will it also be able to index my podcasts?

More important question - How can I make it so that it will ALWAYS use the library file on my external drive and NEVER under any circumstances be making any new libraries anywhere else?

#2

I don’t know. It’d be unusual if it did. Copy your iTunes folders to a backup and try it.

I also have my iTunes database on an external drive, and I think I had this problem when I got my new PC a few months ago.

What I have now is empty iTunes folders on my C: drive. I think I kludged it just by letting it create the new empty db, and later deleting all the files in those folders.

Now, when if I plug in my external drive and then start iTunes, it picks up the database on the external drive. I’m not subscribed to any podcasts currently, so I don’t know if you’d have to resubscribe. Podcasts I saved are still there, however.

When I start iTunes without plugging in the drive, I get the message “The folder containing iTunes library cannot be found and is required. Please choose or create a new iTunes library.” Click on “OK” to continue. Then there’s a message saying to quit, create a new library, or choose an existing library. Click on “Choose library…”. Now I plug in the drive and navigate to the library folder.