Need help saving iPhoto library from damaged hard drive

Trying to help my wife, she has the following:
MacBook Pro running OS X Lion version 10.7.3
iPhoto 11 version 9.2.2
Her hard drive failed last week and she had a ton of photos on it, of course not backed up.
We took her machine to the local Apple Store, they confirmed they couldn't recover the data and they installed a new hard drive in the MacBook. We took the old hard drive to my local PC supplier who's very clever, he worked on the hard drive and was able to copy all my wife's documents to another storage device.....but, he couldn't copy the iPhoto library and is requesting some help.....he doesn't know much about Macs, nor how iPhoto works.
I've read a lot of the posts on this forum and am learning about how the iPhoto library works....and how it requires a Mac based back up hard drive in order to copy it. Okay, here are my questions:
1. My PC troubleshooting guy can see the iPhoto library icon on the damaged hard drive, he says its a huge file. It appears we would need to supply him with a Mac formated back up hard drive, then he could just move that iPhoto library icon (which contains all photos) to the new back up drive. Is this correct?
2. Once we have this old iPhoto library on the new back up hard drive, we could bring it home of course, but then I need to get it into the new hard drive on my wife's MacBook Pro. I'm assuming I can plug this back up drive into my wife's machine, then import the old library into her machine. How do I do this properly?
3. If I bring the old library into the new MacBook Pro hard drive, will it erase the existing iPhoto library on her new hard MacBook Pro hard drive, or will it combine them somehow? She has added of course some pics to the new iPhoto library already, but if we have to delete them it won't kill us. The old stuff that got recovered from the damaged drive is more important.
Thanks ahead.....now to the experts?

Thanks Terence.....
regarding this point:
3. use the paid version ($20) of iPhoto Library Manager to merge the Libraries. that way you won't lose anything.
I have another access to her new photos, whereby I could reload them onto her MacBook if we lose the new library.....so I'll save the $20 and just reload them.....two more questions:
1. So, if I drag the iPhoto library folder from the new back up hard drive to the Pictures Folder in Finder, will that overwrite the existing library folder on her MacBook?
2. After I drag this folder into finder, will iPhoto recognize everything? I assume yes....just checking.
thanks ahead!

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Copying saved iphoto library from external hard drive back to Macbook Pro

Please help, I have accidentally managed to permanently delete my iphoto library and by this I mean that I somehow dragged my library into trash and then emptied it. I don't know how this happend but I quite quickly found out I had done it and shut my computer down. I have since done a recovery with disk drill and have hopefully recovered most of my photos though I havent had time to look through all the 1000's of photos yet. I do have a copied version of my library on an external hard drive that I did in 2012 and I have tried to copy this library back to my pictures folder so i at least have my photos up to 2012 back but it is not working. I have read through some of the threads on here regarding iphoto library back ups and I think the issue might be that the external hard drive is formatted Fat32 and not os extended.
I am hoping someone can help me get this working. Here are the facts.
1. I am running iphoto 11, version 9.2.3 on a macbook pro running os x 10.6.8
2. The copied iphoto library is on an external hard drive that is fat32 formatted. I can open the package contents and see the originals folder with all the yearly folders inside and all the numbered folders inside that with the pictures in them, so I know the pictures are there.
3. If I try to copy the library folder over to the pictures folder on the macbook i just get a pop up window saying 'preparing to copy iphoto library' and the scrolling bar but the copy doesn't actually start.
4. If I try to open the library through iphoto by holidng down the option key, iphoto tells me that the library has to be upgraded but i am reluctant to upgrade the original copy of the library. I would prefer to copy it first in case anything goes wrong but then i have the problem above that the copy doesn't work
Thank you in advance for any help.

The copied iphoto library is on an external hard drive that is fat32 formatted.
Therein lies the problem. iPhoto libraries need to be stored, placed on a disk formatted OS X Extended (journaled). The FAT format doesn't support the complexity of an iPhoto library and can, and more often than not, corrupt a library.
Try the following:
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
1 - download the free version of iPhoto Library Manager and launch.>Click on the Add Library button,
2 - select the library you want to add from those in the selection window.
3 - make sure that in the rebuild window the checkbox "Scavange orphaned photos" is checked.
4 - now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the Library ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
5 - in the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed, i.e. in the Pictures folder of your MBP. Click on the Create button.
Note 1: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost.
Note 2: Your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.
OT

Can't transfer iPhoto Library FROM external hard drive to iMac

I just bought a new iMac. Before I said goodbye to my old computer (a MacBook), I dutifully backed up my iPhoto library onto an external hard drive. Upon setting up my iMac, I easily accessed the iPhoto library on my HD, but I didn't import it. I was able to see all photos, albums, etc.
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Welcome to Apple Support Communities
The external drive is formatted in NTFS, a format that OS X can't write in. You have to erase the external disk.
First, open Finder, choose the external drive in the sidebar, under "Devices", and copy all the content of your external drive to another folder like Desktop.
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I'm backing up my enormous iPhoto library to two external hard drives in order to free up space on my computer. Before deleting the photos permanently from the laptop, I wanted to double-check that the copies of the library I made on the two externals would actually work on another computer, should something happen to my laptop. When I plug my external hard drive into my laptop and use option+click on iPhoto to choose which library I want to use, it opens up the library from the external just fine, no problems. However, when I plug the same external into a different Mac computer and do the same process, I get the immensely frustrating message of "You can't open photo library blah blah blah changes have been made using newer version of iPhoto". However, both my laptop and the second computer are running the exact same version of iPhoto (the most recent), so that can't (or at least shouldn't) be the problem. I found suggestions to rebuild the library, which I did, but the same result occurs. I double-checked to be sure that neither computer needed updates (they didn't).
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OT

Need help saving iPhoto library from damaged hard drive

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