iPhoto won't upgrade old library

I have iPhoto 9.6 (9.10.29) on my Macbook Pro with OS X Yosemite v. 10.10.1. I tried to access an old iPhoto library from 2012 from an external drive. I got the message: The photo library needs to be upgraded to work with this version of iPhoto. I agreed to Upgrade. It unexpectedly quit. 5 times. Help?