HD/folders in disarray....How do I fix?

Question

About a month ago, my HD failed but I was able to recover everything by firewiring everything to my iBook. I ended up having to zero out the HD. It works fine now after reloading the OS.
My primary problem is with iPhoto. I had to drag the photos from the firewire recovery into the newly formed iPhoto. The pics are all in my Photo Library but when I search for the specific folder that has the photos, it can't be found.
Oddly enough, I did create an album that I named after my son and have 2 pics in. I can find this folder on the HD. I can also find folders like: 2004, 2003, 2005, etc and can see a handful of pics in those folders but can't find the entire Photo Library. Some (or all) of the pics in 2002, 2003, etc are pics that are not in my current Photo Library. They were there from the old HD.
I need to find this master library so that I can back it up before the next HD failure.
Thanks,
Jeff

Answer 1

By dragging the library folder into the open iPhoto window you imported every .jpg file within that folder, thumbnails, originals, and duplicates. That's why you have all those in the library. Unfortunately iPhoto Diet will not work on those types of duplicates.
I think I may have a way you can cull out all of the jpg files. It starts with making a backup copy of your iPhoto Library folder. Then do the following:
1 - do a search in the Finder of just the original iPhoto Library folder with the following search criteria: File name contains ".jpg" and File size is less than 50 KB. This will locate all of the jpg sized image files in the library.
2 - select all of those files in the Search results window and drag them to the Trash in the dock.
3 - launch iPhoto with the CommandOptionShift keys depressed and follow the instructions to rebuild the library.
Hopefully this will rebuild the library without those thumbnail files that were imported as full sized files. In the process it will create a new iPhoto LIbrary folder titled iPhoto Library_1. If all is well then you can delete the original and the first backup copy you made.
If that didn't work, try the following:
1 - launch iPhoto with the Option key depressed and create a new library when asked to do so. Give it a distinct name so you can easily identify it in the Finder.
2 - go to the File menu and select the Import option. Now navigate to the iPhoto Library folder that you have stripped of all thumbnail sized image files and select it. This will import your full sized image files into a new library and may preserve some of the roll information. That will get you a working library with only the full sized image files.
Good luck.
OT