iTunes and Time Machine restore

So my iTunes "library" blows up! Lose all files and playlists. I've seen the prescribed steps by Apple to restore from a Time Machine backup - no luck there.

Got so frustrated I uninstalled and then downloaded and installed a fresh version of iTunes (12.2.0.145). iTunes app sits/lives on the internal drive on my iMac in Applications folder. Anything I've ever imported or downloaded into iTunes always goes to iOmega external FW800 drive. Thats where all my music folders which library is built from live. I've gone into my Time Machine drive to a point in history, prior to my library file (guess you call it that) got corrupted. Followed a step by step procedure to try and restore iTunes to a previous state, hope to have my music library and playlists reconstructed. No luck. When I open new iTunes intstall naturally it opens and welcomes me as a first time user. If I choose "scan for media" it just starts importing media it finds on my internal drive. Don't want that.

I've went into iTunes preferences and selected the iOmega drive as my destination point for importing media. That doesn't seem to make a difference in trying to recover library. To me it's as if iTunes doesn't know where to point (in this case the iOmega drive where all the files are) to rebuild an earlier state of iTunes from Time Machine. I was just hoping I could restore everything from Time Machine and be up and running. To have to manually install of those files again sounds like a pain. Any thoughts much appreciated. Also, another thing I've noticed when I open up this new version of iTunes all the assorted folders associated with the app now appear on my desktop. That was never the case in the past. These (album artwork, Library.itl, etc) always were found inside my "user/music/itunes" folder.

I digress. About ready to abandon iTunes altogether forever.