Upgraded 10.2.8 to 10.4.6, now iphoto 2 is empty

Question

Ive looked at alot of similar problems on the discussion board but none of the solutions have worked for me yet, so Im hoping someone can help me solve my iphoto problem easily. Any help and suggestions would be appreciated.
I have just upgraded to 10.4.6 from 10.2.8 (because I bought an ipod and it wouldnt operate without the upgrade).
There have been a few problems, loss of music in itunes (which upgrading from the downloadable itunes7 fixed), also loss of all my emails in mail (not looked into yet) and the worst problem the loss of all photos in iphoto.
Im not hugely mac or computer savvy. - So I tried to return the photo albums to iphoto very badly, without success.
In pictures all my albums were visable and mostly uncorrupted but pictures would only open in preview.
First of all I tried unsuccessfully to drag and drop albums and pictures into iphoto.
Then I tried to drag the whole iphoto file from pictures into iphoto. This took a long time and most photos would not be transferred this way. I then had about 200 pictures in the iphoto library. The problem with this was that many photos were replicated and it used up alot of memory. I tried to put some pictures on a disk and then i got the message to say there wasnt enough memory to do this.
I then tried to get rid of some of the replicated photos and ones i didnt want. I tried to do this using the yearly albums in the pictures folder. This did seem to create space but it emptied iphoto again.
I realised I was out of my depth now.
Ive now recovered all I deleted from the trash and placed it in the pictures folder awaiting some help.
I tried holding down the option key, tried using com.apple.iPhoto.plist and dragging the 2 iphoto folders, one at a time onto the desktop and opening iphoto all without success.
Any ideas?
Clare

Answer 1

If you were using iPhoto 2, then you would not have seen all your albums in the Pictures folder because they would have all been hidden in the iPhoto Library folder. If you took them out, then put them back (and never take them out of there again).
Once you've stuffed the photos you want iPhoto to manage back into the iPhoto Library folder (I assume you have only one at this point), drag it temporarily to the desktop. In your user's Library >Preferences folder, find the file named "com.apple.iPhoto.plist" and drag it to the trash.
Now start iPhoto and dismiss the welcome screen. Once a new library has been established, quit iPhoto.
In the Finder, get the iPhoto Library folder you put on the desktop, and drag it to the new iPhoto Library folder in Pictures. You want to drop the old iPhoto Library folder inside the new iPhoto Library folder (do not replace).
Finally, you will start iPhoto again, but this time start it while holding the shift+option keys. Don't release them until you're prompted to confirm the intent to rebuild the photo library. Click "Yes", then click "Save".
When it finishes, it should open to display your photo library. Your old albums and keyword associations will be gone, but you can do all the regrouping you want once iPhoto is functional again. If you have duplicates to get rid of, drag them to the iPhoto trash. Your library photos can only be added, deleted, or moved around from within iPhoto -- never in a Finder window.