New Hard Drive-Recovering iphoto library folder

I recently received a new hard drive after a crash. My photos were recovered and are in a Recovered Files folder on the new drive. How do I get the iPhoto Library folder (or the entire pictures folder) transfered to the iphoto application on the new hard drive?
BTW, I am not really sure that I have the full iphoto application on the new hard drive. I just drug iphoto 4.0.3 from the recovered files applications folder into the new applications folder. It won't stay in the dock but does open from the applications folder. It imported pictures from my camera and seems to be working fine.
Thanks for your help, this may be my first post but I do monitor the discussions regularly. Your advice is always helpful.

sixm,
OK I better understand your situation.
1- So you say that there was no iP with the new OS 10.4. Most coomputer with 10.4 have ip5. But anyway. You did right to copy the ip4 into the app folder.
2-Now if your "shortcut" in the dock does not work anymore, then trash it. Click and drag the icon from the dock onto the desktop. You should see a puff of smoke.
3- Try to relaunch iPhoto directly from the application folder by double clicking on it. If it works, then you can re-create the alias/shortcut in the dock by dragging the icon from the appplication folder, onto the dock. Maybe the previous icon in the dock became corrupted.
The most important library with 2500 pics (approx)
I hope I understood you right that you NOW have 2 libraries in the pictures folder. iphotolibrary AND iphotolibraryold.
BTW DO NOT venture inside the ipLibrary and move any items/photos around. Iphoto will be all confused and will stop working properly
4-So you are saying that ip, right now start the iphotolibrary (with 250 pics). add a number at the end ( iphotolibrary2) this way when you start iphoto, it will not be able to find the library with 250 pic, and you will get a dialog box saying so. One of the 3 button will be "Find" the library. So click "find" and navigate to the "iphotolibraryold" and this wil point iP4 to it (the old library)
5-Hope it opens properly (if the library is intact from the transfert from HD to HD)
If it does work properly, then you can add the other 250 pics to this library within the iP application... meaning on the iP4 Window.
5.1 you can add by copying "recently scanned file that was sitting on my old desktop"
or
2 step process. We are going to extract the 250 pics from the "iphotolibrary2".
5.2 Quit iphoto. Change the name of iphotolibraryold to iphotolibraryold3. This way iPhoto will not be able to find the old library. Launch iP, Click "find" like stated in #4 above, and now you will have iP running the iphotolibrary2 with250 pics.
5.3 create an empty folder on the desktop, and select all your pictures from iP window, and drag all the pics onto the empty folder on desktop.
5.4 quit iP4, and repeat similarly to step #4. Remove the "2" on iphotolibrary2, and when you launch iP4, again it will not be able to find it. Then point to iphotolibraryold wit the 2500 pics.
5.5 When ip is running, drag the Folder from the desktop on to iP window to copy all the 250 pics into this "old library" with 2500pics.
5.6 If all is well, (everything copied like you wanted it) at this point you can trash the folder on the desktop, AND the iphotolibrary2 from the pictures folder. Now before you empty the trash, make sure everything is working perfectly. Quit iP and re-launch to test everything, only the you can empty the trash.
Now you have a better understanding on how IP work. You can manage multiple libraries. I personally have 8 libraries. one for every 2 years of pictures. An I use an application called iPhoto buddy, that can switch from 1 library to another without having to go change the name of the library inside the pictures folder.
Hope this works. let me know how you did.
one more thing..
as you experienced it, with a drive crash, I would suggest that you purchase and external drive, and you can make a "clone" of you internal drive. This way if you should have any problem, you can easily copy from one drive to another. HD are so cheap these days, I purchased a 120GB for $130 -70 rebate= $60 at fry's. I have suffered a drive crash 3 yrs ago, and lost a lot of pictures, videos...... It cost me $800 to retreive info on a 250GB that cost $500 back then.
Backing up onto a CD od DVD will soon become restrictive..... as your libraries become bigger than 4GB ..... with 5 or 8megapixel cameras it is not hard to go above this size with 2500 pics...
my 2 cents
michel

Similar Messages

  • I copied library to a new hard drive, now iphoto won't recognize files.

    I am new to iPhoto, so be gentle. My daughter uses it a lot, and now I seem to have messed up her library. We are using iPhoto 4.0.3. OS 10.4.11
    I installed a new hard drive. I copied the iTunes and iPhoto libraries to the new larger hard drive. I copied the iphoto library to a designated folder (not the default folder). My daughter has now moved the photos into their default location, and advised iPhoto of where to look - User/Daughter/Pictures/iPhoto library. When she opens iPhoto her photos don't appear. When she picks a photo and drops it into iPhoto, the message appears,
    "could not be imported because an unrecognizable type or file may not contain valid data."
    The files are jpegs that open fine in Photoshop, Preview etc.
    I did some reading and saw reference to deleting the file com.apple.iphoto.plist. Tried that, no success.
    I would appreciate your assistance. Like I say, I don't know iPhoto at all. As a second question, I have a G4 with a dual 1.8 processor, what version of iPhoto/iLife should I be looking to upgrade to?
    Thanks for your help.

    "could not be imported because an unrecognizable type or file may not contain valid data."
    That is the standard error you get when you try to import a photo that already resides inside the iPhoto Library folder. It prevents duplication in your library.
    It sounds like you followed the correct procedure, but let's double-check. iPhoto can be run from a location other than the default. When you moved the library, did you copy the whole iPhoto Library folder as one intact unit? How did your dtr point iPhoto to the library? The correct way is to hold down Option while launching, select "Choose (or Find) Library" then navigate to the iPhoto Library folder and Open. Is this what you/she did? If so, perhaps try again?
    As a second question, I have a G4 with a dual 1.8 processor, what version of iPhoto/iLife should I be looking to upgrade to?
    I am very happy with iLife '06 on my 1.4 GHz G4 mini with 1 GB RAM. You could get iLife '08 for iPhoto 7, but be aware that iMovie 7 won't load on your machine because it requires a G5 or Intel machine. I made the decision not to upgrade because I'm happy with my current performance, and I think that the video-intensive and RAM-hog iPhoto 7 would bog down my mini. You can still buy iLife '06 from Amazon.com. See the system requirements:
    http://www.apple.com/ilife/systemrequirements.html
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306336
    Regards.

  • HELP!   Wife dropped Hard Drive with iPhoto library

    So, yesterday I moved my wife's iPhoto library to her WD external HD so she could install Snow Leopard on her iMac. Today I get home and she meets me in the driveway telling me that her HD fell of her filing cabinet and the computer won't recognize it. I take a look at it and here's the message I get when I plug it into the computer:
    <Red Stop Sign w/ "!" in the middle>
    *The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.*
    (Initialize...) (Ignore) (Eject)
    I am hesitant to click the (Initialize) button for fear of an accidental formatting which would subsequently erase our iPhoto library (ALL OF OUR PHOTOS -> 90GB of photos).
    Because this is the ultimate board for great insight and info on all things mac and computers, I felt it would be most prudent to put this query to the monitors of these boards.
    What do I do?
    Thanks!
    Message was edited by: Bramthorne

    Initializing will erase the drive. However, the files may be recoverable afterwards with a recovery utility such as File Salvage. However, that will recover files, not the Library and you'll need to start over creating a whole new iPhoto Library after recovering. You will lose books, edited versions, slideshows keywords etc etc.
    I would start by connecting the drive to other Macs or PCs and by try to use different cables and ports. This may be as simple as a dodgy connection from the fall. See if you can get anything to read the drive, then copy the data off it.
    Regards
    TD

  • How to move/copy Home Folder to a new hard drive?

    Hard drive crashed in Snow Leopard, but before it did I pulled off my home folder. I am going to reinstall Snow Leopard on a new hard drive. How do I move/copy my home folder to the new hard drive? The home folder is sitting on an external hard drive that connects via firewire 400. Do I simply recreate the user account on the computer with new hard drive and copy/move the old home folder over to overwrite the new home folder? Looking forward to any suggestions.
    David

    Normally you can move your exiting home dir to another drive without any problems.  For example, see
    How to Move the Home Folder in OS X – and Why
    But you appear to want to take a home dir from another system and make it the home dir on another system.  That may or may not work.  The operations are the same, i.e., point to the new home dir via the Accounts  system prefs advanced options.  But if the account id's are not the same there is going to be permissions problems.
    Similarly, you can have permissions problems for the same reason just copying the stuff over the newly created home dir. 
    If you already know the user id's are the same then I think you may just get away with the substitution.

  • How to copy iphoto library folder from Time machine to new hard drive

    How do I copy my iphoto library and music library from my time capsule to my new hard drive?
    I have a Macbook pro - 2.53 GHz - 4 GB memory.  I just replaced my hard drive to 500 GB and upgraded to OX 10.9.4. I created a new user account and login password for the new hard drive.  I copied my documents folder to external drive before the old hard drive failed, but I was not able to copy over my iphoto library or imusic library.  My old hard drive was regularly backed up on my time capsule (1TB).
    I used migration assistant to transfer my user account to the new hard drive (1 of 3 on the time capsule).  The data transferred successfully, but at login the login name  does not match the user folder. Nor do any of my passwords allow me to login to the transferred username/account.  When I login to the account that I set up on new hard drive I can see the userfolder migrated in but the folders do not allow entry.
    What can I do now at least to get my photos on the time capsule onto my current hard drive? Can I go into my time capsule like an external hard drive and simply copy over my iphoto library from the last back up of the old hard drive?

    You probably tried to move a user account from your TC to your computer that was already active on the computer.. this is one of the no no's that pondini lists.
    See how to migrate. http://pondini.org/OSX/MigrateLion.html
    There is a huge amount of info there about transferring files.. that you must not have a user account of the same name as the one you migrate.. and how to transfer files between migrated accounts.
    He also has specific info on moving itunes and iphoto stuff here.
    Q15 http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
    You might need to fix up permissions or reset the password for the account.
    There is details here..
    How to reset admin password iMac
    I have had to do that myself.. once you reset the password you will be able to login to the account.

  • Problems with copying iPhoto library onto new hard drive from external HELP

    I had to get a new hard drive installed onto my MacBook Pro, but was able to copy my iPhoto library onto my external hard drive via another computer before the old hard drive failed. Now, I am trying to copy that library back onto my MacBook.
    After I copied the library onto the MacBook, when iPhoto was opened, it showed no photos but I could see album titles. Then when I opened iPhoto while holding down the option key, it was all clumped into one event and not nearly all of the photos were there. Also, I have right-clicked on the library to see package contents and everything seems to be there, but I don't know how to make it all show up in the library.
    I've downloaded iPhoto Library Manager because I thought that might help (but haven't used it yet -- don't know how) and I just need some help to recover my iPhoto library... and is there a way to restore all the separate events imported and time/date stamps, in order to get all the photos in chronological order?

    Should I just go through the iPhoto Library package contents and drag every folder into iPhoto?
    No. That will get you massive duplication.
    Try these in order - from best option on down...
    1. Do you have an up-to-date back up? If so, try copy the library6.iphoto file from the back up to the iPhoto Library (Right Click -> Show Package Contents) allowing it to overwrite the damaged file.
    2. Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. This will create a new library based on data in the albumdata.xml file. Not everything will be brought over - no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your albums and keywords back.
    Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.
    3. If neither of these work then you'll need to create and populate a new library.
    To create and populate a new *iPhoto 08* library:
    Note this will give you a working library with the same Events and pictures as before, however, you will lose your albums, keywords, modified versions, books, calendars etc.
    In the iPhoto Preferences -> Events Uncheck the box at 'Imported Items from the Finder'
    Move the iPhoto Library to the desktop
    Launch iPhoto. It will ask if you wish to create a new Library. Say Yes.
    Go into the iPhoto Library (Right Click -> Show Package Contents) on your desktop and find the Originals folder. From the Originals folder drag the individual Event Folders to the iPhoto Window and it will recreate them in the new library.
    When you're sure all is well you can delete the iPhoto Library on your desktop.
    In the future, in addition to your usual back up routine, you might like to make a copy of the library6.iPhoto file whenever you have made changes to the library as protection against database corruption.
    Regards
    TD

  • I'm trying to transfer my pictures from my iPhoto library to my external hard drive. I dragged the iPhoto Library folder into the drive and after waiting a while it says Error Code -36. I need to free up space asap, what should i do?

    I'm trying to transfer my pictures from my iPhoto library to my external hard drive. I dragged the iPhoto Library folder into the drive and after waiting a while it says "Error Code -36 The finder cannot complete the operation because some data in 'iPhoto Library' could not be read or written". I need to free up space asap, what should i do??

    Yes, the Old Master file has a folder for each year where I find all photos from that specific year. I am attaching a screen shot of the file.
    In the meantime i have managed to download all photos (it did not download any video files though in mpg, avi, 3gp, m4v,mp4 and mov format) to a new iphoto library. Unfortunately the photos are quite mixed and often doubled up. I ma considering to purchase iphoto library which checks all duplicates in iphoto. this will save me a lot of time. What do you think?

  • My Mac Pro had new hard drive installed. I downloaded the latest iPhoto application. All my photos have been restored to a folder which I dragged to the iPhoto icon. The photos are not down loading.

    My Mac Pro had a new hard drive installed. Everything was restored by Carbonite except my photos. Carbonate restored them to a folder and the folder was dragged over the newly installed iPhoto app. The photos are not installing. What next?
    Ron Rushford

    What happens when you try File -> Add to Library?

  • I have an external hard drive connected to my iMac 2006; the OS on this iMac has been upgraded.  I wanted to have back up copies of all our photos on iPhoto; I moved the iPhoto Library folder to the EHD.  Now I want to delete a lot of the photos on the iM

    I want to delete the photos on the iMac's hard drive but I want all the copies on the EHD; to free up space on the iMac.  I experimented by deleting one photo in the iPhoto library on iMac but when I checked the EHD, it was deleted there, too.  How can I delete photos from iMac w/out deleting from EHD?

    Photo Library icon that sits on my desktop
    Do a Get Info in the Finder on that, is it an Alias pointing to the external drive?
    Open the iPhoto Library folder on your actual internal drive in the Finder, is that deleed pic stil there?

  • HT1229 My iPhoto Library (version 8.1.2) is 280GB (greater than 50% of my 500GB total storage memory on my iMac.  It was too large for me to drag it to a new hard drive so the Apple geniuses did it for me.  However they did not delete the Library from my

    My iPhoto Library (version 8.1.2) is 280GB (greater than 50% of my 500GB total storage memory on my iMac.  It was too large for me to drag it to a new hard drive so the Apple geniuses did it for me.  However they did not delete the Library from my iMac (that's my responsibility).  I dragged it to Trash and when it started to move I clicked over to the new hard drive to confirm it had indeed been copied.  I became nervous when I didn't see among the few files on this otherwise empty new hard drive anything that resembled a 280GB Library so I cancelled the migration to trash.
    How can I be sure that my iphoto has been copied and that all my "metadata" survived in tact?

    the new backup drive
    I thought the new drive would be your data drive to host the iPhoto library. Do you also use it for TimeMachine backups?
    I am unable to search either in email as well as Finder.  I AM able to search within iPhoto though, thankfully
    Spotlight may still be busy rebuildig its index.
    You could try to rebuild the Spotlight Index, if you do see no progress:
    Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes
    I hope, other frequent posters will drop in. I have not used iPhoto 8.x in long time.

  • How do I save an IPhoto library onto a new hard drive while it's open? It is a miracle I got it open, and it has refused to be copied the usual way (by dragging its icon to destination drive).  i want to save those photos!

    How do I save an IPhoto library onto a new hard drive while library is open? It is a miracle I got it open, and it has refused to be copied the usual way (by dragging its icon to destination drive).  i want to save those photos!

    My external Lacie Hard drive that contains the IPhoto library is a "locked volume."  Wow, now it is suddenly letting me copy it. I dragged the library's icon to the new destination (a 3T hard drive) and it is working so far. 
    I have also had problems copying my IMovie events from this drive, whose data I'm trying to save.  It reaches a certain video and stops.  I will delete that video and try again.

  • I moved iTunes and library to new Hard drive M: , now Sync is lost. Need to collect files and rebuild to proper folder.

    I installed a new hard drive and partitioned it into 2, P: Pictures: and M: Music: . I moved all my iTunes Files and Folders to the M: drive. Then when I connected my iPhone4 to iTunes it asked if I wanted to create a new sync, I said no but I seemed it couldn't find my old sync file. So I searched my computer for files and folders of iTunes and placed them all into a iTunes folder on the root of M: drive. I need to rebuild the iTunes folder correctly.
    I have all the correct items on my iPhone and haven't lost anything. Its just a problem trying to sync. Biggest problem is my music. When I try to sync music there is trouble. I can't seen to remove all music from iPhone and resync. When I thought I did iTunes would say no more music will fit. (Music is normally 70% of my memory on phone and I try and leave 1GB of 16GB free on it).
    I wan't to build the iTunes install on the D:\Program Files (x64)\  since I don't install anything on my SSD drive C: except Windows 7.

    How exactly did you move the files or more specifically, what did you move?
    The correct way to move the iTunes files is to move the ENTIRE iTunes folder (or copy it) from the original location to the new location.
    Once moved, hold Shift while launching iTunes and point it to the new location.
    If anything other than the ENTIRE iTunes folder was moved, it needs to be put back in the original location to correct the issues created then moved correctly.

  • Moving iTunes library from a hard disk with bad sectors to new hard drive

    I have tried to move my itunes library using the method proposed by Apple in the support section but it does not work because of a bad hard drive.
    I change the itunes folder in preferences. I let itunes organize my music. However, when I select consolidate music everything starts OK but stops when it hits the bad sectors on the old hard drive.
    I can copy the rest of the music to the new hard drive manually using finder. However, the music is not recognized in the new location only the old location.
    I have tried many things including moving music to another hard drive and naming it the same as the old hard drive and then trying to consolidate it. That does not work. I have tried the method of changing the library.xml file to reflect the new folder. That does not work. I am at a stand still. I have invested much time rating the music and I do not want to lose that.
    Any suggestions?
    Tom

    tonybassplayer wrote:
    Thank Chris I have just done that. How do I now get them in to Itunes ?
    If you simply copy the iTUnes folder to /Music/ and launch iTUnes, everythign will be there. No need to import anything.
    This will work the same with iPhoto.
    Simply copy the Photo library to /Pictures/ folder and launch iPhoto.

  • I have a new hard drive as my old one crashed. Everything seemed to transfer fine except for my entire iTunes library. It shows all of my old songs, but when I click on one it states "the song could not be used as the original file could not be found

    I have a new hard drive as my old one crashed. Everything seemed to transfer fine except for my entire iTunes library. It shows all of my old songs, but when I click on one it states "the song could not be used as the original file could not be found.would you like to locate it".
    Either how do I locate it, and I've tried every trick I know, or how do I restore all of my songs from one of two sources. I have my old hard drive backedup on an external drive which should have all of my songs, and I have most of my songs on my old iPhone 3S which I'm using as a backup iPod.

    The "missing file" error happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, or the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place. In the case of a library moved from one system to another there are also potential permissions issues. See Repair security permissions for iTunes for Windows.
    Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to Get Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. (Due to a bug in iTunes 12 you currently have to say No twice!) Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case.
    In some cases iTunes may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links.
    If another application like Windows Media Player has moved/renamed the files then the chances are that subtle differences in naming strategies will make it hard to restore the media to the precise path that iTunes is expecting. In such cases, as long as the missing files can be found somewhere, you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes. See this post for an explanation of how it works.
    See also Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
    tt2

  • Moved library to new hard drive, iPod no longer communicates

    Ok, I am computer savy but know next to nothing about iTunes as I don't use it, but my wife does use it. However, my wife is not computer savy.
    My wife's old hard drive started dying (on a Dell laptop), so we bought a new one and moved all her files over. However, she now has 2 problems:
    (1) She cannot use any of the old music files. I read around online, and I have discovered that we need to consolidate the old files from the old HD into a flash drive using the iTunes consolidate library function. Then they can be imported to the new library on the new computer. This is doable as the old drive is not yet completely dead.
    (2) However, she has since purchased/downloaded new songs out of the iTunes store onto the new HD, and thus I need to keep the new HD's library intact or we'll lose the files. *Now the big problem: her iPod will not connect to the new iTunes library.* I assume this is because iPods sync with a particular library, not a particular computer, and the library of the old computer was not properly transferred. Thus there is a new library, that contains songs we don't want to lose, but we can't connect the iPod.
    Please help! How do we transfer the old "library" settings that allow the iPod to be synced without completely deleting the existing library on the new hard drive?
    Thanks.
    OS is Windows 7 and new HD's iTunes version is 10.0.0.68.
    Message was edited by: bagman27

    RS
    How did you go about this move?
    The correct way to do it is
    1. Quit iPhoto
    2. Copy the iPhoto Library as an entity from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
    3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
    4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
    If you still have the original library it might be worth trying again.
    Regards
    TD

Maybe you are looking for