How to delete photos when iphoto9 doesn't respond to move to trash command?

Question

The command "move to trash" works on some photos and events and not others.Currently have about 27,000 images in about 600 events.    MacBook Pro runs Snow Leopard ver 10.6.8 and iphoto 9.   I hit option & command keys when opening up iphoto and checked off rebuild library.  This did not solve the problem.   Thought it was not enough RAM and lack of hard disk space.  Recently doubled RAM to 4 GB and increased HD from 200 GB to 750 GB.   Still have the problem.  Tried to rebuild library again after the upgrades but to no avail.  Tried to delete event through the finder by opening up package contents in pictures and accessing data and noindex data and then deleing the images in the particular event.   The images were deleted but the event (now without pictures) remains in iphoto;  the event cannot be deleted.    Folks at Apple Store are perplexed.   Apple consultant ran out of ideas.   They thought that it might be a defective spot on HD but when the HD was replaced, the problem remained.    Has anyone experienced this problem?    How can this be solved?   Thanks,
Explorer1

Answer 1

You've trashed your Library.
1. Before you changed the Hard Disk, how much free space did you have on your Mac? Running iPhoto on an overcrowded disk can cause database corruption - which would account for the symptoms you are seeing.
2.
Tried to delete event through the finder
Don't change anything in the iPhoto Library Folder via the Finder or any other application. iPhoto depends on the structure as well as the contents of this folder. Moving things, renaming things,, deleting them or otherwise making changes will prevent iPhoto from working and could even cause you to damage or lose your photos.
And even at that: you did it worng
and accessing data and noindex data and then deleing the images in the particular event.
That's trashing the thumbnails, not the photos. So the pics are there, as is the entry in the database but you've removed any way for iPhoto to show or mange them.
Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. This will create a new library based on data in the albumdata.xml file. Not everything will be brought over - no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your albums and keywords back.
Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.