When i open iPhoto it says my photo library is unreadable and will not open. How can i fix this without losing my photos?

Well if you have no back up you need to make a back up now. It might be too late, but you're not going to know until you fix this.

Most Simple Back Up:

Drag the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to another Disk. This will make a copy on that disk.

Slightly more complex: Use an app that will do incremental back ups. This is a very good way to work. The first time you run the back up the app will make a complete copy of the Library. Thereafter it will update the back up with the changes you have made. That makes subsequent back ups much faster. Many of these apps also have scheduling capabilities: So set it up and it will do the back up automatically.

Example of such apps: Chronosync- but there are many others. Search on MacUpdateor the App Store

Then try:

Option 1

Back Up and try rebuild the library: hold down the command and option (or alt) keys while launching iPhoto. Use the resulting dialogue to rebuild. Choose to Repair Database. If that doesn't help, then try again, this time using Rebuild Database.

If that fails:

Option 2

Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. (In early versions of Library Manager it's the File -> Rebuild command. In later versions it's under the Library menu.)

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.

Regards

TD

Solution is

1 - Shut down and restart your computer, and then open iPhoto again.

2 - If the problem persists, try rebuilding your photo library. To do this, quit iPhoto, and then reopen it while keeping the Option and Command keys pressed.

3 - You can also try restoring your photo library from a backup."

And no rebuilding does not delete anything - UNLESS something goes wrong - which is why you NEVER rebuild, update or upgrade until you have a good, tested backup

And at the risk of being blunt - it is amazing stupid not to have a backup if your computer files and your photos mean anything to you - with no backup it is just a matter of time until you ose them all - bad things hapopen and with no backup when they do you lose things - there are two kings of hard drives - ones that have failed and ones that are going to fail - then add to that user errors and software problems and random computer failures - it is plain crazy not to have a good backup at all tiems - expecially since Apple is so nice that they include a free, great backujp program with every Mac - Time Machine

LN