my 12,000 photos have disappeared, time machine not working

dragonfly9 wrote:

I went into Photos and it is blank! I tried to restore from Time Machine and it isn't working. HELP!!!

You mean IPHOTO? and did you load your pictures into IPHOTO - or just a reference to another folder?

Try this software http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

to give us a better idea of what is going on on your system.

Unless you share details with us we can not help

you state that you have OS X 10.4.1 and iLife '08 - what versions do you actually have?

What has changed since things worked?

What is wrong with TimeMachine?

LN

and

What has changed since things worked?

If TM will not run and Photos sill not run and Etrecheck will not run it sounds like you may have bigger problems

Boot into the OS X recovery volume and use disk utility to repair your drive -- OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support - you should be sure you have a current backup prior to doing this

LN

dragonfly9 wrote:

I have OS X 10.11.5

Photos version 1.5

I have used Time Machine for years but never had to restore anything. It seems to go into a loop and even after hours nothing happens.

I downloaded and ran the etrecheck software, but it is still running or has gotten stuck.

Time Machine kept backing up when I wanted it to restore. It deleted a lot of my earlier back-ups because my back-up hard drive is full.

How much RAM?

Size of hard drive/s and amount not used?

Size of time machine drive and amount not used?

Have 250 GB on laptop hard drive, with 2.68 available.

You're is dangerous territory. You should immediately free up a minimum of 10 -15 GB of free space. Do not download any thing else to your hard drive until you free up more space.

You may have to connect your Mac to another Mac in the Target Disk Mode, Transferring files between two computers using FireWire, and delete the files from the other Mac.

All my files is not a place but a listing of everything on you mac - never mess with files in all my files -- The Curse of All Files and All Images and False Duplicates

And be careful at the Genius Bar and be sure you have a good backup before you go - sometimes they cause more problems than they solve

How did you get a duplicate Photos library?

and if you are 200% sure you want to delete something (you can not undo this) you can use the delete immediately function of OS X - http://osxdaily.com/2015/11/23/delete-files-immediately-bypass-trash-mac-os-x/ - just do not be wrong

LN

dragonfly9 wrote:

Forgot what RAM is...

Have 4GB of memory.

Have 250 GB on laptop hard drive, with 2.68 available.

Had 50 something GB available before I started messing with this, so there is some duplication there I think.

Time Machine hard drive is 500 GB, and it is full.

I see from later posts that you started deleting files -- so just want to say STOP IT.

See if you can get recommendations for a PC/Mac contract firm in your area that takes care of PC/Macs for small businesses who do not have their own IT department. A Mac specialist used to working with/cleaning up macs that have your type of issue may be able to recover some of most of your data. As they work with systems that have a companies data on them - in order to keep their business - they are more secure than taking it to a store.

One problem may be that your time machine is backing up to your hard drive because the removable is full (that may be the duplicates).

Too late for All my Files, I had already deleted a lot of items there, freeing up a total of 12.89 GB on my hard drive.

That is too bad - there is a very good chance that you have damaged your Photos library beyond repair - do you have a backup from before you deleted this form "All my Files"?

With 12+ GB you should be able to operate now - 10 is the min

LN