Copying photos from iPhoto to desktop-error

I'm trying to save or drag photos from iPhoto to the desktop or hard drive but it won't let me. I get the circle with a line through it. When I try exporting the photos to the desktop I get an error message that says, "Unable to create users/myharddrivename/desktop." Some photos copy over but some don't. Is there a way to just access the main iPhoto library and grab them all? This is an old machine, so I don' t think it works like the new versions of iPhoto. I can't see any folders anywhere under my user or library. Any insights?

iPhoto uses a "libraries" paradigm and essentially hides your photos in "packages" which no other applications can access, including Apple's own Finder.
If you let iPhoto touch your photos, it took them over and you can now only access them through the Export function inside iPhoto. You cannot use the Finder to drag-copy them.
(iPhoto is the first thing I customarily delete from any and all new Mac OS installs.)

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mdg516
Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
The problem is that every time I try and copy the whole library, it finds a picture that crashes the whole effort.
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but then after about 10 of them it stopped working: about 50 photos into each Event it tells me that it cannot create the volume on the hard drive. Do you think it's a problem with the hard drive?
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Copying photos from iPhoto to desktop-error

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