Library screwed or iPhoto?

Hi there,
quick question relating to the iPhoto library: I still see all photos on the HD, however they don't show up in iPhoto anymore (at least a huge part of them seem to have fallen through the cracks).
I read a few posts regarding doing a rebuild, but so far I didn't have any success. I tried to rebuild the thumbnails (since pics are still on HD but don't show up in iPhoto), but that didn't do much. Yes, a few more pictures reappeared, but others then dissappeared. I still have a back-up on an external disk, but this image also seems to be screwed.
I'm pretty much at a loss here and desperately need your help! Thanks so much... 8,000 pics and a whole lotta problems...
Meta data such as albums et al. will be lost once I do a complete rebuild, huh? That would really be a shame after years of sorting...
Thanks so much for your help!
Phil

Hi Philipp,
Dod a rebuild again, this time checking all the options:Try this:
Before doing a rebuild make sure iPhoto's trash bin is emptied. You can do this by control clicking on the trash bin, or from the menu bar under iPhoto.
Close iPhoto
Duplicate the iPhoto Library folder
Drag the duplicate to the desktop (hopefully you have enough room on your hard drive for the duplicate.)
Launch iPhoto holding down the Command and Option keys until you see the rebuild options screen.
Choose the first three options. If you were missing photos in your library, also choose the last option. Be advised that you will get a roll of orphaned photos and it might be quite huge. Most of them will already be in your iPhoto library, but use caution when deleting anything from this roll until you are sure the photos are still in your library in another place. It might be a good idea to share/export this roll of photos just in case you need to import them again.
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.
This is the reason to make a duplicate before you rebuild, in case you do not like the result. If you don't like the result, close iPhoto, then delete the rebuilt library and drag the duplicate back into the Pictures folder making sure the name is iPhoto Library. Launch iPhoto and it should open the library in the Pictures folder.
iPhoto 4 or later: Rebuilding the iPhoto Library
You should not lose any albums, slideshows, keywords on a rebuild.
If the rebuild doesn't work check the permissions on the iPhoto Library folder. Maybe some permissions got messed up with some of the folders within it.
Get info on the iPhoto Library folder
In this next screen shot check to make sure the permissions are Read/Write for you. Also check the box at the bottom of the window.
iPhoto Library Info
If none of this works, go to iPhoto Help 2 and follow instructions to create a new library.
iPhoto Help
iPhoto Help 2

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<Re-Titled By Host>

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drinsurrey wrote:
Ok, to begin with let me apologise in advance for how this question is written. I am not the most savvy person when it comes to this type of thing but I am trying, I promise. So, I'm on my second MacBook Pro because my old one died a death after 5 years (and a toddlers intervention), a helpful guy at at Apple store got the harddrive out for me (a shiny piece of silver) which he said held all of my photos and music - the only two things I was worried about. With the help of this drive type thing that I plug this harddrive into, I was able to move across all of my music onto my new MacBook Pro but knowing that my photos would be a bigger job, I left that until I had more time. Well, I have just attempted to do this and it simply wont. It says its something to do with versions numbers. I can drag the library from the old harddrive (just the whole thing as I don't know if there is a specific sub-file that I need) onto my new desktop but when I think try to drag the old library into my new iPhoto, it simply wont read it. I have no idea what my old version number is but it would be pretty old, perhaps last updated 2-3 years ago. My new iPhoto library is version 9.2.3.
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Option 1
Back Up and try rebuild the library: hold down the command and option (or alt) keys while launching iPhoto. Use the resulting dialogue to rebuild. Choose to Repair Database. If that doesn't help, then try again, this time using Rebuild Database.
If that fails:
Option 2
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Regards
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Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
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