Export Issues in Iphoto 11'

Question

I am having some serious issues trying to move my iphoto library to an external hard drive. I have read just about every article on here about the issue but none help at all. I keep going to File > Export and it brings up the options box for exporting. After i select my settings it asks for the new location, when i try to tell it to go to the external hard drive it just goes back to the previous diologue box and does nothing. I read that i should try exporting it to another file folder on my desktop then transfer the file and then delete it off my notebook hard drive. When i try to tell it to export to the desktop it does the same exact thing everytime. I am not an idiot and have been using my same set up for about 4 years now, something is a miss, and i have no idea what it is. Also my HD on my notebook is basically out of space and i have been deleting older photos and music to make room for the disks to be useable, and i cant keep doing this. I have a 1TB  TC as well that i use to keep music and stuff on, (doesn't work like it should either) but i need all my photos on a portable drive. Getting unbelieveably frustrated at this point. Hopefully somebody can save my *** on this one.
James

Answer 1

Do not export anything at all. If iPhoto is open, Quit it.
Go to your Home folder inside the Users folder, and open the Pictures folder inside it. Drag the iPhoto Library from there onto your external drive's icon and drop it. The entire library will be copied intact onto the external drive.
Now click the iPhoto icon in your Dock while holding down the Option key. iPhoto will ask what library you wish to use. Navigate to the library on the external drive and select it. The library will open exactly as it did previously. If it does so and everything is in order, delete the iPhoto Library from your Home > Pictures folder to recover the hard drive space it now occupies.
Remember that just as the library needed to be backed up to another drive when it resided on your internal drive, it still needs to be backed up to another drive after you move it. That means you'll need a second external hard drive on which to back it up.
Remember also that if you don't have the external drive connected to your computer each time you open iPhoto in the future, it won't be able to use that library, and any pictures you import at such a time will be stored in a new iPhoto library that will be created on the internal drive.