iPhoto not responding

Hi

Over the past few weeks our iPhoto has been ‘not responding’. We have the following set up:

2GHz Intel Core Duo iMac (2006) with 2GB ram

OS X Version 10.6.8

iPhoto 9.1.5

I have a large photo library (about 30 GB) on an externalWD firewire 1 TB HD

105 GB space on the internal hard drive.

I have tried all the standard steps such as:

Delete the iPhoto preference file

Selected a different iPhoto library

I have created new iPhoto libraries. On the rare occasioniPhoto is responding once I attempt to import from a camera or SD card it willstop responding and just hang there.

Launched iPhoto with the Command/option keys

I have ejected my external HD, selected a different library still‘not responding’

I have uninstalled iPhoto twice (deleting all iPhoto PKG andBOM files) and reinstalled from the iLife disk twice (including iPhoto softwareupgrades to 9.1.5), with the external HD disconnected and iPhoto is still ‘notresponding). When iPhoto isstarted the CPU usage seems OK (10to 20%) but then drops to about 1.0 to 0.2% CPU usage as it stops responding.

I have made no recent software changes (other than regularApple system updates), have been using the same camera I have been using foryears and all other software on the iMac appears to be working fine.

From all this I am assuming that my external hard drive libraryis OK (it has been eject for most of this trouble shooting). I am starting to think there might besome hardware issue. Or some faulty file I have missed.

Any advice will be appreciated.

Cheers

Mark