Retrieving iPhoto pictures from external hard drive

Yesterday, I was finally successful in finding and retrieving E-mail files from my external hard drive. This long-awaited success made me optimistic that I would be able to do the same with missing photos from my iPhoto library. That turned out to overly optimistic, and I failed completely. Anyway, I think I found an important clue for my failure, and I'm hoping that someone here will be able to unravel that clue.
I have been unable to copy the screen where I find my iPhoto files, but I think the important thing is that many of them open up into a picture of a flower, which is probably a representation of a photo album. However, there is more to it than that. The last such picture I found showed--I think--that it contained 3.12 GB. If I'm right, these "photo albums" contain all of my missing iPhoto pictures. The problem is how to open up these "photo albums". Can anyone help?
One last thing: these iPhoto pictures were added to my computer over a period of years, so several different operating systems were involved. I remember Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion, but I've had some kind of Mac for at least ten years, so there were probably several others. Also, of course, several versions of iPhoto. I only mention this because I can remember notices on the screen to the effect that "this file cannot be opened because it was created in another operating system," or something to that effect.

I can't take a picture of the screen showing the iPhoto files, but here is what's there:
iPhoto Library
iPhoto Library (original 2)
iPhoto Library (Original 2) Recovered Photos
iPhoto Library (Original 2) Recovered photo 2
iPhoto Library (Original 3)
iPhoto Library (Original)
iPhoto Library (rebuilt).photolibrary
iPhoto Slide shows
When I click on them, I get different results. Sometimes photos, but also the following messages:
(1) iPhoto is unable to open this library. The library has issues that require rebuilding to correct.
QUIT     REBUILD
(2) The photo library needs to be upgraded to work with this version of iPhoto.
Your iPhoto library will not be readable by previous versions of iPhoto after the upgrade. The upgrade process for very large libraries may take an hour or more to complete.
QUIT   UPGRADE
(3)
To get started with iPhoto, do any of the following:
Connect a camera or memory card
Drag photos into iPhoto
Chose file>"import to library"

Similar Messages

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