I have recently bought a 'G Drive' external hard drive and backed up my entire computer, however when i try and open iPhoto on the hard drive this message comes up....
I have tried to select a different library to open it with but still the same message comes up...could anyone please help me..
thank you!
Can you describe why you're trying to open it in this way? Are you trying to recover a photo from your backup, or do you just want to store the iPhoto library on the external?
Also, on the external hard drive, where is the iPhoto Library file? As the message says, you won't be able to open it if it's inside the Backups folder.
If you really want to copy/move it to the external, try copying it again from your system drive, and paste it to the root (top) of the external hard drive in the Finder - not inside the Backups folder. Note that it's advised not to have other files than your normal Time Machine backups on a drive used for backups.
Matt
Restore the iPhoto Library from your Time Machine backup, if you want to use it as a library. You cannot work with the library, while it is part of the backup. iPhoto needs write access to the library.
I just want to store my iPhoto library to the external hard drive
Also how do i restore the iPhoto library from my time machine back up?
this is all very confusing as I'm not even sure what time machine is, apart from it letting me view my computer back in time.😕😊
Several thiungs
1 - Time Machine is a backup program that protects your from hardware or software or user failures by making hourly backups of y0oru computer allowing you to "go back" in tiem if somehting goes wrong
2 - the iPhoto library can NOT be on the same disk as the TM backup[
3 - you can not use the TM backup directly - you must use the TM application to restore it to danother disk
4 - to put the iphoto library on an external drive
Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)
And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive
LN
To restore from your backup:
Select the Pictures folder in the Finder (or wherever you are keeping your iPhoto Library). With this folder the currently activeFinder window enter Time Machine by running the Time Machine Application and enter the Time Tunnel. Go back in time by clicking on of the dates at the right border.You can either restore by overwriting the original library (click the "Restore" button) or restore to a different location by ctrl-clicking the item you want to restore. Select "Restore to...". In your case, I'd use "restore to", so you can compare the restored library to your original library.
If you are new to Time Machine backups, read this help document: Mac Basics: Time Machinehttp://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427It explains how to openTime Machine and select an external drive for backups.And this documents explain, how Time Machine works: http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html How Time Machine Works its Magic
Transferring iphoto to external G Drive
