[jsearl]

I perhaps stupidly copied my iPhoto library to CD prior to reformatting my hard disk, then attempted to simply copy it back to the Pictures folder as before.

This doesn't work: iPhoto reports zero images. Perhaps my copy to CD didn't copy everything properly or perhaps iPhoto is just very senstitive to being messed around!

I've tried rebuilding the library (opening iPhoto with command+option) and also importing all the pics back manually - both these optioon work to a degree but destroy the old folder structure AND lose the photo's original dates.

Can anyone suggest an alternative? I still have what LOOKS like a perfectly OK iPhoto library.

None of the iPhoto librarian programs I've tried seem to recognise it either.

Thanks in advance

James

PS Why is iPhoto so touchy in this respect? Other image cataloging programs are much more forgiving!

[podragon]

This may be stating the obvious, but I think the original date and other info for each photograph is stored in the library.data, cache.data and dir.data files in the original iPhoto Library folder. Did you back up those files with your images and replace them in exactly the same location as before? If you did I agree with you that what you did should work fine - in which case I'm stumped too.

I am experiencing problems related to yours when I attempt to re-locate my iPhoto images folder to a hard-drive other than the one OSX is installed on - or any other folder for that matter. I may be missing something here, but I have not been able to find a way to specify a new path for images and library data files. I was hoping iPhoto could simply rebuild its library based on the original library files and a new path - or that I could at least make it work by editing the library files manually, but I have not been able to make this work.

The AlbumData.xml file in the iPhoto library folder contains these tags at the start:
<key>Archive Path</key>
<string>/Users/username/Pictures/iPhoto Library</string> - which seems to indicate that the path is not intended to be hard-coded in the iPhoto application. I guess the .data files must contain something similar, but if they do I have not been able to find it. So - no luck.

Anyone successfully backed up and then restored their iPhoto Library, or moved their Library relative to its original location? Anyone know anything about this?