Please, please help! Photos in library disappearing before my eyes.

Question

When I open up the iphoto library, my picture thumbnails disappear one after the next--from seemingly random places, though mostly on the right hand side)--before my eyes. My worry is that I am going to loose all my photos.
History: I have never had any problem with my iphoto program. I have never altered, moved, or renamed anything in the iPhoto library folder. I always work from within the program itself. A couple of days ago, I got a message saying I was running out of hard disk space and that I needed to eliminate some items in order to make more space. I clicked on the iPhoto trash and emptied about 2000 photos from it. After that when I scrolled in the library, the photos began to disappear and leave gray shapes with dotted outlines. No picture appears when they are clicked on.
I called the Apple Care support. The fellow I worked with suggested that I should try rebuilding iPhoto and sent me an article on how to do that. He also said that I will need to have as much free space on my hard disk as the size of the library is. The library is 16,000 MB. There are 6,000 MB still available to use. He said NOT to open up the iPhoto program until I had rebuilt the program and then he rang off.
I'm pretty innocent of how computers work and it wasn't until I realized that it's the photos and Quicktime movies from my camera themselves that are filling the disk space and that there isn't much else filling up the disk space (novels and poems and letters don't take up much space it turns out!) that I realized I am in a Catch-22 situation. How to eliminate things when I can't open the program for fear of losing all photos?
I have some but not all photos backed up on DVD. My husband has a selection on his computer but does not have the DVD burner capacity. He could burn the photos he has on a CD, but that would take forever. We do not own an external hard drive, but I am wondering whether I should see if I can find one--that's easier said than done since we live out on a headland in Ireland pretty far from everything. The closer Apple store in five hours away.
One other possibility I've come up with: we have an old PowerBookG4 which still has about 22,000 GB available on it. Could it be used in some way to hold the photos from my computer (The MacBook) as I try rebuilding the iPhoto program on my computer (the MacBook)? We have a firewire.
We are going to Paris next week, and I want to be able to take a ton of photos (my great joy!) without worrying that I'll have nowhere to put them. (Memory cards are expensive here.)
Any help would be very appreciated--thank you in advance. And I'd also be grateful if it were couched in the easiest to understand computer language possible (don't assume I know a whole lot.)
Josie

Answer 1

Josie
Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
1. Go to your Pictures Folder. In their is a folder called the iPhoto Library Folder. Inside it is a folder called Originals, and that contains Roll Folders. Your pics should be inside there.
That's: Pictures / iPhoto Library Folder / Originals / Rolls
So, first off, confirm that your photos are there.
2. Yes you do need to clear off disk space, and yes, your iPhoto files and any music you have a good candidates for moving to an external disk. You can purchase an external disk from the online apple Store (http//:www.apple.com/iestore is the Irish AppleStore) Look for the 'Storage' link on the left hand side. They'll ship it to you in three or four days (in my experience)
3. In the meantime, rebuilding your library will require disk space. It's not difficult, and doesn't take very long. If you have Firewire on the old Powerbook then here's what you do:
1. Turn Off the Old Powerbook. Connect it to the Macbook using a FireWire cable
2. Hold down the 'T' key and start the Powerbook. A Firewire symbol will appear on the screen, and the PB will turn up on your MacBook desktop, as an external disk.
3. Copy the iPhoto Library Folder (from your Pictures Folder) to the PB - just drag and drop it to the icon on the desktop.
4. Confirm that your Pictures have crossed over safely. Then double check. And then check again, because...
5. Put the iPhoto Library Folder in the Pictures Folder of the MacBook into the trash and empty it. (Note: Be sure that your pics are on the old Powerbook!!!) (We have to trash the iPhoto Library Folder from the MacBook to make space for the rebuild.)
6. Launch iPhoto on the Macbook. It will ask if you wish to create a new Library. Say Yes.
Go into the iPhoto Library Folder on the PB and find the Originals folder. From the Originals folder drag the individual rolls to the iPhoto Window and it will recreate them in the new library.
Note this will give you a working library with the same film rolls and pictures as before, however, you will lose your albums, keywords, books, calendars etc.
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.
This should give you a working iPhoto Library on your Macbook.
But you still have a space problem, and you should deal with it as a priority. Once you have got an external disk, post back and we'll go through how to put your library on to it.
Greetings from sunny Clare.
Regards
TD