IPhoto won't recognize all ANY photos in folder

HELP! I consider myself fairly Mac savy, and yet I'm at a total loss on this one!
I have my iPhoto Library folder on an external drive. Somehow , there was a corrutpion and now iPhoto says/shows I have NO PHOTOS in my library. All my photos/files (over 8,000 of them) and in the iPhoto Library folder unharmed. I just CAN'T get iPhoto to recognize them.
Here's what I've tried so far --
HOLDING DOWN OPTION KEY WHILE LAUNCHING to reselect folder.
HOLDING DOWN OPTION AND APPLE KEY TO REBUILD EVERYTHING
DUMPING THE PREF. FILE
I'm hoping against hope that I won't have to reimport ALL my files! Say it isn't so!
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

HI robert,
I'm not going to say anything! :^(
but if need be (and I think there is) here are the instructions for creating a new library.
How many images do you have in your library?
Do you mind losing albums, keywords, comments?
If not...
close iPhoto
-rename your old library to iPhoto Library_old
-launch iPhoto with the Option key depressed until you get a message screen and choose to create a new library
-name the new library
-once the new library is open...
-double click the old iPhoto Library folder on the external to open it
-the two main folders you will need to import are the Original folder and the Modified folder (only if you want to import the edited images).
-the Originals folder has all your originals photos unedited. the Modified folder has all images that you have edited, rotated, cropped, etc.
-Drag these two folders to the desktop
-If you want to save the edited image, find it in the roll in the Modified folder and drag it into the roll of the same name in the Originals folder. It will replace the originals and now will be the original.
-If you don't care to save any edited images, then don't import the Modified folder into iPhoto or don't bother replacing the edited image with the original image like I just described.
-If you import the Originals folder into iPhoto you will have all your originals in their named rolls.
-If you import the Originals and Modified folders into iPhoto, you will have all of the being in the originals folder in the finder. The roll with the same name as the other will have a _1 appended to it's name (in the finder)
-the roll from the originals will be next to the same roll from the Modified folder within iPhoto. You can then delete any of the images from there if you want.
I know this might sound confusing but it really isn't.
Get back if any of this sounds like something you might want to do.

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