Another blank thumbnail debacle

I've searched iPhoto 6 discussion forum back and forth and although having tried all suggestions Smtr and Terence Devlin have suggested to others, I'm still having trouble. I have a little over 3,000 photos that I imported over from iPhoto 4 to iPhoto 6. Initially, the import went smooth until I was asked to "rebuilt thumbnail cache". After choosing to do so, I now have over 2,000 of my photos not showing up as thumbnails, even when I scroll up/down or when I double-click. The library still shows a count of 3000+ and what I would assume are the correct amount of photos in the default film rolls that came with iPhoto 6 (ex. 2004, 2005, 2006, etc). Thumbnails won't show in the film rolls either.
In addition, when scrolling up/down a display in the center of the screen stating the month and year of the group of pictures has appeared and won't go away.
As stated above, I've already tried numerous suggestions and am willing to keep trying but at this point I think it'd be better to uninstall iPhoto 6 and start from scratch.
Don't know if this matters but it may be worth mentioning: I'm currently running OS 10.4.10 on an eMac 1GHz PowerPC G4 with only 3+ GB left on my hard drive. Could hardware and/or HD space limitations be affecting performance? I hope not since it won't be until the end of the year before I can spring for one of the newer iMacs. I do, though, have my photos and music on an external.

PhillyPhan, thanks for your continuous replies.
The iPhoto Library folder is on the external, not the internal. So, that's 3GB of space left without having those files on the internal. Remember, I already had those photos on when I was running iPhoto 4. It wasn't until the I installed iLife 06 that the thumbnails started disappearing. Maybe the space used by iLife06 somehow caused a problem between the thumbnails and the actual pics?

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