Freaking iTunes won't see my freaking Library

Yeah, more iTunes bullshit.
Somewhere along the line, in the endless parade of updates, my stinking GD iTunes got pointed to a different Library.
My old Library is there, I can see it in Explorer, and when I do the reset (Edit>Preferences>Advanced>General) and enter the proper location, nothing freaking happens.
When I plug in my iPod, it’s kind enough to inform me that the current (fucking empty) Library is different from that my Pod is synched with, and do I want to replace the Pod’s contents?
Obviously not.
Any ideas here?
I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled numerous times, no difference.
This shit is driving me bugfuck.

Before you try anything like this, make sure you make a back-up copy of your library.

First make sure iTunes is closed. Then try opening the iTunes Music Library.xml file (it should be where you say your library is) with a text editor. It’s all in text and lists every single file in your library, including its rating, time last played, and location. Look at the location for a bunch of the files. If they’re pointing to the wrong place, do a search and replace to change them all to point to the right place. Save the file (Make sure to save it in text format. Don’t open it in Word and save it as Word format.) and then open iTunes.

Again, make sure you back-up your library before you try this.

Another way to do this if you don’t care about your ratings, play counts, etc. is just to delete the library file and then reimport all your MP3s.

EDIT: Oops, I misread your problem. Ignore the above.

Are you sure you know where your original library file is? The library file is that .xml file. If you open it and see that it’s the correct one, try copying it to where iTunes puts the library by default, overwriting the empty library that iTunes created.

OK, well we’re getting somewhere.
The folder in question has TWO sets of Library files (.xml and .itl), one for itunes and one for itunes 4.
The one for 4 is the one that is being used, and it’s empty.
Unfortunately, when I deleted the set for 4 and restarted my iTunes, it freaking re-generated the itunes 4 set!
This is like fucking HAL here or some GD thing…

You need one of these:

[quote=“the chief”]OK, well we’re getting somewhere.
The folder in question has TWO sets of Library files (.xml and .itl), one for itunes and one for itunes 4.
The one for 4 is the one that is being used, and it’s empty.
Unfortunately, when I deleted the set for 4 and restarted my iTunes, it freaking re-generated the itunes 4 set!
This is like fucking HAL here or some GD thing…[/quote]

So can anyone think of a reason why I can’t cut and paste the entire contents of the old iTunes .xml file (the one that iTunes consistently ignores) into the new iTunes .xml file (the currently empty one that iTunes loads)?
Is there likely to be a problem with the .itl file?

Have you tried importing your old library? (File > Import)