Trouble opening iPhoto library in Aperture that has been transferred to an external hard drive.

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JTGracely Author

Level 1

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Trouble opening iPhoto library in Aperture that has been transferred to an external hard drive.

I am having trouble opening my iPhoto library in Aperture now that it has been transferred to an external hard drive.

Versions being used:

MacBook Pro 13-inch mid-2010

OS X v. 10.9.1 Mavericks

Aperture v. 3.5.1

iPhoto v. 9.5.1

Order of events: got MacBook > took pictures > created an iPhoto library > upgraded to Mountain Loin > added more photos to iPhoto library > upgraded to Mavericks > purchased and downloaded Aperture > copied iPhoto library to a 750 GB WD My Passport.

When attempting to switch to this iPhoto library while using Aperture an error stating, “Unable to Switch to Library. Aperture cannot switch to the selected library because the file system of the library’s volume is not supported.” iPhoto can access this iPhoto library with no problem. What is missing? Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Aperture 3, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

Posted on Jan 5, 2014 12:43 AM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

194,773 points

Jan 5, 2014 1:06 AM in response to JTGracely

“Unable to Switch to Library. Aperture cannot switch to the selected library because the file system of the library’s volume is not supported.”

Aperture 3.5.1 is checking for file system compatibility, iPhoto not always.

copied iPhoto library to a 750 GB WD My Passport.

Check the filesystem on your WD drive. Did you remember to format the drive for MacOS, before you copied the library there? It needs to be formatted MacOS X Extended (Journaled) to be used with any photo library. iPhoto may be able to open the library, if the filesystem is not supported, but you are risking data loss.

You can reformat the drive with Disk Utility, if the file system is wrong (after backing up your iPhoto library to a different drive). See:

iPhoto: Issues with FAT32-formatted drives

Format external drives to Mac OS Extended before using with Aperture

Regards

Léonie

You see the File System in the Finder's "File > Get Info" panel, when you select the drive in the Finder and use "File > Get Info" from the main menu bar or press cmd-I.

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