Cannot Get Music App to connect to My External Hard Drive

I have seen a lot of these...but so far no solutions. The set up...

For years, I have used an External Harddrive. And when I initially upgraded to Catalina and iTunes went away, I was able to access the music on my external hard drive with zero problems.

I had an event a couple weeks back while burning a blu-ray where the program I was using to burn the disc crashed. As I tried to open everything back up, a domino effect happened where completely unrelated programs could not be accessed (including Safari). It got to the point where I could not reboot. I finally was able to open in safe mode and just did a hard factory reset....erased the hard drive and re-installed the OS.

This has, so far been a good solution after I got past the frustration. Until I opened Music. The only files music included were songs I had purchased on iTunes. So, I went and made sure that the Music library was set to the Hard Drive. Once I had selected that, I discovered it still behaved the same. Even though the file path leads to all my music? I do not see it. It is like the only thing Music will acknowledge is music I have purchased through iTunes.

Here is what I have tried:

Music>Preferences>Files>Music Media Location and then set the path to the folder with all my music on the Hard Drive. I leave "Keep Media Folder Organized" and "Copy Files to Music Media folder when adding to Library" checked. Click Okay. Close and re-open. If I check the location, it shows I have selected the desired path. HOWEVER, if I look at the library? It is just the iTunes purchases from the years all with the download symbol.

I have also tried Option+Open Music. I select Create library, name a new library using the path to the files on the hard drive. Save. No change. Even though it shows my Music Media library is set to the Hard Drive location, none of those files appear, *only* iTunes purchases. I am trying to follow the solutions elsewhere on the site...and I have not had one bit of success.

I have no desire to use cloud access (some of my favorite music would be inaccessible to me then). I have the recent iPod Touch Classic so that I can add songs I like and listen to them without using bandwidth. I am getting tired of trying to find the solution...and honestly, wondering if I will ever be able to actually access my music easily again.