I've had an iPod (a mini) for a couple of years. Over time I've added quite a few files to iTunes. Every once in a while (once a month?) it seems to lose a few. I'll do a sync and it will complain that it can't find some files. The files are all there on the disk, though!

Today I've had a major blowup. I've now gotten to the stage that I've got about 200 missing files - there were none yesterday. Again, all of those files are actually on the disk.

How can I get iTunes to rescan the whole library and realize that it hasn't really lost all those files?

On a side note: in the process of poking around trying to solve the above problem, I discovered a directory of Unknown Artist \ Unknown Album \ Track n.mpa's. It doesn't ever show up in iTunes, and I don't know how to get them to do so, so I can try to play them.

Config: WinXP SP 2, iTunes 7.0.2, 1st generation iPod mini. It's blue. :-)