IPhoto '09 won't shut down unless I force quit

Question

I am trying to thin out my library and am manually copying them to an external drive. When I then move event to the trash and empty trash, iPhoto locks up and will not close. After I force quit, all the events are back in the library, but grayed out. Please HELP. What am I doing wrong, or is there a way to quickly back up the entire library to an external drive?

Answer 1

I followed your advice and dragged the library onto the back up drive, and it copied it all over, but is it just running it from that location now?
Nope. You need to choose it first. Now that the Library has been copied you need to tell iPhoto to look at it.
To tell iPhoto which library to read:
_Quit iPhoto if its open
_Hold down option on the keyboard
_Keep holding option and launch iPhoto
_You will get a window that asks you to choose a library
_Go down the list of libraries and locate the one that is on the external drive (as you click on each library you will see it's location listed at the bottom of the window)
It didn't clear up any space, and when I opened iPhoto from the desktop to delete the events it seems to also delete from the backed up version.
Once you have followed the above steps to switch iPhoto to your library copy on the external drive you can then go to Home > Pictures > iPhoto Library and dump that Library in the trash.
_Launch iPhoto again to make sure you have your pictures. If you do, then you can empty your trash which will free up the disk space.
<hr>
Back to your backup question.
By moving your iPhoto Library to an external drive, and then deleting the Library from the computer, you now have your iPhoto Library in one and only one location, the external drive.
So what happens if that external drive crashes? poof all pictures gone.
To avoid that from happening you want to have a backup. What is a backup? A backup is a copy of your information. By having your information in two different locations, if one location stops working (failed drive, lightening, cats) you have a second location where the data is stored.
For VERY important information that you never want to lose, you should consider having even more backups like on DVD or even another hard drive that you disconnect from the computer and store somewhere safe (like inside a fire-proof safe). You would update that additional backup every now and then.
Here is how I have my computer setup.
_Macintosh HD -- This is my computer. It has all my files minus iTunes, iPhoto, and Movies.
_Media Drive -- This is my 1st external hard drive. It contains all my iTunes, iPhoto, and Movies. (I did this because my Macintosh HD was getting so full because of all the iTunes, iPhoto, and Movies content.)
_Time Machine Backup Drive -- This is my 2nd external hard drive. The Time Machine program performs automatic backups of both the Macintosh HD and the Media Drive to this drive.
If I have an issue with either the Macintosh HD (the computer) or the Media drive (the location of my pictures, movies, and music) I have a backup in that Time Machine Backup Drive that I can get my files from.
You could setup your system in the same way.
I have a "my passport" drive, but I've been warned that they are a bit sketchy.
I don't own a passport myself though I've seen them. Have you actually had an issue with it or is this someone else's reports of issues? If you have had issues with your drive you should contact the drive's manufacturer to get those resolved (assuming it's in warranty still).
If you have doubts or have had recurrent issues with one of your external drives, you might want to consider replacing it with something you do trust. Why keep a drive you think is bad? Hard drives are really quite inexpensive these days. You can get big drives for relatively little. Examples from Apple's website (but you can buy drives at pretty much any store that sells electronics).
If your shopping for a backup drive go for the largest one you can afford (you can always use more space because you will eventually fill it up). Also going for a faster connection like Firewire is a good thing to look for, though certainly not required.
Cheers