IPod/Itunes sync problems

Hobo85

Hi Guys,

I rarely connect my Ipod to my laptop as i have a wall charger, therefore rarely use itunes. The odd occasion arises where i spend hours downloading music, save them to a folder and then decide to put them on my ipod. All my music is store on an external hard drive, so first of all i open itunes, here's where the problems start. I usually need to upgrade to a newer version at this point. I then import the folder containing said downloaded music to i tunes, no major problems thus far, but once i plug in my ipod it says something like.......'this ipod is synced with a different i tunes library'......'you must erase and sync'. I've almost 30,000 tunes so this takes quiet a while to do and is a pain in the h**e. Any suggestions as to what could make life that little bit easier?? Thanks in advance.

Hobo85