iphoto library on external hard drive greyed out & unaccessible from iphoto app

Question

Level 1

2 points

iphoto library on external hard drive greyed out & unaccessible from iphoto app

Hi

I have a 2007 iMac, with a 2 gb ext hard drive that holds my iphoto library and 3gb airport for Time Machine backups. I upgraded to Yosemite, after upgrading when trying to open the iphoto app, it said that it had to be upgraded and the only options were quit or upgrade. I shut down/restarted a number of times but this kept coming up with my only options. So I clicked upgrade, this took a long time to run and left it overnight its currentlyversion iPhoto 9.6, when it finished the app opens fine but it won't open my iphoto library. I've tried each of the first aid options for repair they run, the app opens but no pics are found, except those from icloud or Facebook. When I look in finder I can see my library on the external hard drive and in backups but when in iPhoto and I 'switch to library' nothing happens or 'import library' it won't open the file its greyed out. If you have any advice or links to guides i should follow to get the pics back through the app that would be great.

Thanks C

Posted on Dec 6, 2014 3:16 PM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

194,755 points

Dec 7, 2014 12:05 AM in response to Cassandie

CCheck the file system on your external drive. the drive needs to be formatted MacOS Extended (journaled), if you want to use it with iPhoto. previous versions of iPhoto did not check the file system, but the newer versions do.

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Answer 2

LarryHN

Level 10

106,110 points

Dec 7, 2014 6:23 PM in response to Cassandie

1 - NEVER import an iphoto library - it does not work and created a massive mess

2 - you may have damaged your library by force quitting multiple times - you should not do that except as a last resort

3 - what happens if you double click on the iPhoto library on the EHD? If it does not work backup your iPhoto library and hold down the option and command keys and double click on the library - keep the keys down until the first aid window appears and rebuild your database

LN

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Answer 3

Cassandie Author

Level 1

2 points

Apr 20, 2015 2:37 AM in response to Cassandie

Thanks Both I contacted apple and they were very helpful. I did have to do a lot of work to restore my photo library but at least all the photos are accessible.

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Answer 4

Old Toad

Level 10

207,439 points

Apr 20, 2015 10:11 AM in response to Cassandie

Would you like to share what you had to do get the library to be recognized by iPhoto so others with a similar problem can benefit from your experience?

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Answer 5

Cassandie Author

Level 1

2 points

Apr 21, 2015 3:10 AM in response to Old Toad

Hi Old Toad

I'd love to tell you but to be honest I'm not sure! It was 4 or 5 phone calls and each took a long time. In the end i think some of the key steps were reformating the external hard drive after trying many things, then I pulled the library from my time machine backup, via show package contents and dragged the contents into the new iphoto app (after deleting and reinstalling it too) which meant losing all of my albums and have had to start from sratch. Also through the process i ended up with thousands of additional files that of 'faces' from each picture and events and a large number of photos had the original photo information date/time modifed (no idea how this happened). Needless to say it was a mess and i don't receommend any of that. I do recommend always backingup your data on an external drive seperate to everything else because in the end that really saved the day 🙂

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Answer 6

Old Toad

Level 10

207,439 points

Apr 21, 2015 9:17 AM in response to Cassandie

I do recommend always backingup your data on an external drive seperate to everything else because in the end that really saved the day

That's our mantra around here.

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