Transfering photos to iPhoto from PC

Question

I switched over to a mac a year ago, and since then I've been working on transfering over all of my pictures from my PC. I had them carefully organized on my PC with the date and name for each folder of photos. I transferred the pictures, folder by folder directly into iPhoto and changed the event name to not include the date since the date the picture was taken is automatically picked up my iPhoto. If any dates were incorrect I also manually changed the date.
A month ago I noticed that I was missing a significant number of events in iPhoto. Upon futher investigation I realized that all of my pictures prior to 2007 and also those pictures from 2008 were missing! I wasn't nervous that I completely lost them because they are still on my PC and I also have a time capsule that backs up my mac everyday. The issue is that I think I lost all of my organization. I called up Apple Support and they walked me through the steps to recover my iPhoto library and it seems to have restored all of the missing event, only the event names and dates are all messed up. This is terribly frustrating and I'm wondering why these events disappeared in the first place! I'm now wondering if I transferred the pictures into iPhoto incorrectly the first time. Are you supposed to transfer folders of pictures into the home folder under pictures and then import them into the iPhoto library? I had directly imported my photos into iPhoto so there are no individual pictures showing in my pictures folder. I'm still a novice when it comes to Macs so any help is appreciated!

Answer 1

If you're running a Managed library, then it's the default setting, and iPhoto copies files into the iPhoto Library when Importing
If you're running a Referenced Library, then you made a change at iPhoto -> Preferences -> Advanced and iPhoto is NOT copying the files into the iPhoto Library when importing.
Sounds like you have a damaged Database file:
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 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