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iPhoto is not showing photos that i have saved on an external drive. I can see tht the photos are on the drive, but iPhoto is not showing them. Help!!

Iphoto is not showing the photos that I know are stored on the external drive. I can see that there is 45 Gig of photos stored on the drive as they appear in finder when looked for, but I cannot see them in iPhoto.

I have used the external drive as the default location for my iPhoto library and not had this problem before.

I had a message earlier about generating thumbnails. I also had iMovie running this morning. This is when the problem began.

Have tried restarting computer and all the obvious things.

Also tried rebuilding the library.

Please help!

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.8), iPhoto 08 7.1.5

Posted on Jan 3, 2013 9:38 AM

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Posted on Jan 3, 2013 10:01 AM

You also might have launched iPhoto while the EHD was not available - if that happened you get a virtual volume that is invisible - to check or to resolve this quit iPhoto, dismount your External hard drive and in the finder under the go menu go to folder /Volumes - if your EHD shows there drag it to the desktop, reconnect your EHD and restart the system


LN

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Question marked as Best reply

Jan 3, 2013 10:01 AM in response to JimmyG78

You also might have launched iPhoto while the EHD was not available - if that happened you get a virtual volume that is invisible - to check or to resolve this quit iPhoto, dismount your External hard drive and in the finder under the go menu go to folder /Volumes - if your EHD shows there drag it to the desktop, reconnect your EHD and restart the system


LN

Jan 3, 2013 1:48 PM in response to JimmyG78

Try these in order - from best option on down...


1. Do you have an up-to-date back up? If so, try copy the library6.iphoto file from the back up to the iPhoto Library (Right Click -> Show Package Contents) allowing it to overwrite the damaged file.


2. Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. (In Library Manager it's the FIle -> Rebuild command)


This will create an entirely new library. It will then copy (or try to) your photos and all the associated metadata and versions to this new Library, and arrange it as close as it can to what you had in the damaged Library. It does this based on information it finds in the iPhoto sharing mechanism - but that means that things not shared won't be there, so no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your events, albums and keywords, faces and places back.


Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.


3. If neither of these work then you'll need to create and populate a new library.


To create and populate a new *iPhoto 08* library:


Note this will give you a working library with the same Events and pictures as before, however, you will lose your albums, keywords, modified versions, books, calendars etc.


In the iPhoto Preferences -> Events Uncheck the box at 'Imported Items from the Finder'


Move the iPhoto Library to the desktop


Launch iPhoto. It will ask if you wish to create a new Library. Say Yes.


Go into the iPhoto Library (Right Click -> Show Package Contents) on your desktop and find the Originals folder. From the Originals folder drag the individual Event Folders to the iPhoto Window and it will recreate them in the new library.


When you're sure all is well you can delete the iPhoto Library on your desktop.


In the future, in addition to your usual back up routine, you might like to make a copy of the library6.iPhoto file whenever you have made changes to the library as protection against database corruption.

Jan 9, 2013 2:12 PM in response to Yer_Man

Hi Terrence,

I'm still struggling with this.

The frustrating thing is that if I go to show package contents on the library I can see the photos, I just canno get iPhoto to open them or select the library.

Is it possible to uninstall iPhoto, reinstall a new version and open the library in this way?

Or any other suggestions?

Thank you

iPhoto is not showing photos that i have saved on an external drive. I can see tht the photos are on the drive, but iPhoto is not showing them. Help!!

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