Photos and Albums have Disappeared

Question

I appreciate that there seems to have been some problems with iPhoto 09 and Snow Leopard.
I have been successfully using iPhoto 09 since I installed Snow Leopard without any problems. I purchased Snow Leopard immediately after it was launched. I back up everything on a very regular basis to a Lacie external drive.
I recently returned from holiday and imported 377 photos from two cameras. The import also included a few small movies taken with one of the cameras. As usual the import worked perfectly. Both myself and my wife had a quick look at the photos and movies so I know I am not going mad when I say that they have disappeared! I created an event for all the photos in my iPhoto library and a separate album for all the photos and movies. I also did some general tidying up at the same time before backing up to my Lacie using Super Duper which has always worked very well.
A couple of days later when I went to look at the photos I had imported they had disappeared. And horror of horrors they are nowhere to be found on my Lacie. The various other tidying up tasks that I completed at the same time which included creating events and some new albums are also nowhere to be seen.I am completely mystified.
When I go into my Home Pictures Library and click on Originals there is no sign of the photos either. I have also tried a spotlight search with no success. The Originals file for years 2001 to 2008 show all the titles of the events I have created however the same does not apply to 2009 which simply shows a variety of different dates. I do not have any untitled folders in my iPhoto library. The following will hopefully make what I am trying to say a little clearer:
*This is an example of how my photos are listed in the Originals folder for the years 2001 to 2008:*
California 2001
Pat and Fred 50th
*This is how my photos are listed in the Originals folder for 2009:*
4 Jul 2009
7 Aug 2009
7 Jul 2009
7 Jul 2009_2
8 Aug 2009
8 Aug 2009_2
8 Aug 2009_3
8 Aug 2009_4
8 Aug 2009_5
13 Sep 2009
15 Mar 2009
19 Jun 2009
Australia 2009 Jayne's Photos
Australia Sue's Photos 2009
Dublin
Oz Quick Album
Rovinj Photos
Take That
To make matters worse I needed my SD cards and have deleted the photos from them which I hardly ever do until I am satisfied that everything is ok.
If anybody has any ideas or remedies I would be extremely grateful.

Answer 1

First:
To recover the missing photos: Run file recovery app over the Camera cards - MediaRecover is one but there are many others.
The layout of the Library you describe is not unusual. This is due to a change made with iPhoto 09, where there is no longer a strict correlation between the Events in the iPhoto Window and the Folders in the Originals Folder.
Is there any chance that you have a second iPhoto Library lurking on your Mac somewhere? This can happen betimes, a common place for such a thing to be is In the Volumes Folder:
In the Finder Use the Go Menu and select 'Go To Folder'
In the resulting Window type
/volumes
A Finder window will open at this location. Can you see another Library there?
Regards
TD