IPhoto Library won't load

Dear wise friends,
I was careless and started dragging photos from my iPhoto Albums folder, which is inside the iPhoto Library folder, which is inside the Pictures folder under my user name on the Hard drive.
I didn't notice until after I dragged a couple of photos that is was moving the photos out of the original album folder and into the folder I created on the desktop. It was my hope to just copy and paste the photos-not completely remove them from their original Album folder.
However, this has now completely debilitated my iPhoto Application. When I try to start iPhoto, the library never loads. I can see the outline of the iPhoto (4.0.3) application on the screen, but it continuously says "Loading Photos" without ever loading.
iPhoto help and online support both say: +*"Important: If you move, delete, rename, or change files or folders in the iPhoto Library folder, you may be unable to see your pictures in iPhoto."*+
BUT no where do they tell you what to do if you do not obey this rule. How do I fix this mistake so iPhoto will open and show my library? Do I need to uninstall and reinstall? Do I need to bite the bullet and upgrade to the newest version of iPhoto/iLife?
Thanks in advance for the help.
Lane

Hi, lane, and welcome to Apple Discussions. You need to rebuild your library. Hold down the Shift and Option keys while starting iPhoto. Keep holding them down until you're asked whether you want to rebuild the library. Click Yes, then click Save.
This will create a brand new iPhoto Library_1 folder alongside your original iPhoto Library folder. The pictures you moved out of the original library may (depending on exactly where you pulled them from) be missing from it; in that case you'll need to reimport them from wherever you moved them to, and then reassign them to the albums you want them in. Once you're satisfied that all is well with the new library, trash the old library folder to regain the disk space it occupies. If the new library doesn't open properly or contain what you expect it to, trash it instead of the original library and post back for further advice.
Because the rebuilding process creates an entirely new library folder the same size as the original, you must have adequate hard drive space for that before you begin. And unless your hard drive is really tiny (10GB or smaller), you should always keep at least 5GB of available space on it in addition to everything that's stored on it, even while both library folders are present. The operating system needs those 5GB of space for temporary files and "elbow room" at all times.

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Apologies for the delayed response.
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Option 1
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If that fails:
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Using your original library try the following: make a temporary, duplicate copy of the library and try the three fixes below in order as needed:
Fix #1
Delete the iPhoto preference file, com.apple.iPhoto.plist, that resides in your Home/Library/Preferences folder, launch iPhoto and try again.
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Fix #2
Launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys depressed and follow the instructions to rebuild the library.
Select the options identified in the screenshot.
Fix #3
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
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Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the File ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
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OT

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Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
Tried deleting all relevant metadata (files in iphoto library folder and library>preferences)
What files did you delete in the iPhoto Library Folder, exactly?
Did not move or rename iphoto.app.
Good to know, but the warning about moving/renaming does not refer to iPhoto.app but to the library:
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Back to the rebuild, depending on the size of your library it might take some time. When it is done, hopefully your photos will be there.
You might see some unexpected results as I did when I did a rebuild. Photos had been moved to wrong dates, video clips had lost their duration info and some were even orphaned from the jpg pointer file. It took me some time to straighten it out again.
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Option 1
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