[m021478]

I have my primary iPhoto library on an external hard drive, and while I was using iPhoto and had the library opened, I accidentally unplugged the firewire cable connecting the external drive, which resulted in iPhoto giving me all sorts of error messasges. I wound up quitting iPhoto, then plugging in the hard drive again, and when I attempted to reopen iPhoto, it now shows me nothing more than an empty iPhoto library with no photos in it (even though the size of the iPhoto library on my external HD is still hundreds of Gigabytes in size).

Any idea on how to fix this issue? Thanks!

[bearcatrp]

Would suggest you invest in disk warrior and try to recover the files. Did you try running disk repair to see if that fixes it? Your disk probably became corrupt when you disconnected it improperly. Maybe try shutting down your mac and external drive, turn on the external drive 1st, then boot up your mac and see if it gets recognized but double it will work. Won't hurt to try though.

[Jacke]

My guess is is that some iPhoto index file got messed up. You should still be able to access the photos if you right/ctrl-click on the iPhoto library file and show package contents. Don't know an easy fix though...

[AKcrab]

Hold down cmd and option when you launch iPhoto and attempt to rebuild your library.
or
Hold down option only and tell iPhoto where the library is.

[Atheist]

Originally Posted by AKcrab 

Hold down option only and tell iPhoto where the library is.

Be sure to hold down the option key immediately after you start iPhoto (not while you click the iPhoto icon).

It sounds like iPhoto is opening up your local iPhoto library in your home folder. This happens to me a lot with iTunes. My iTunes library is on a networked drive. If for some reason it can't see the network drive, it opens my local iTunes library, which is empty.

[AKcrab]

Originally Posted by Atheist 

Be sure to hold down the option key immediately after you start iPhoto (not while you click the iPhoto icon).

It works fine if you hold it down when you click it... Just keep holding it long enough.

[m021478]

I've tried everyone's suggestions and nothing worked...I wound up fixing the issue by complete chance though!!

While addressing a completely unrelated issue, I checked the Finder's hidden folder "/Volumes", and I noticed that within that folder existed a non-aliased folder (named exactly the same thing as my external HD that the iPhoto library was stored on), and within that non-aliased folder was an iPhoto Library (with exactly the same name as my iPhoto library on my external HD that I'd been trying to access), and this iPhoto Library was of course empty.

FYI: for those that don't know, you can access the /Volumes folder by choosing the 'Finder/Go' menu then typing in "/Volumes" - within this folder you should see nothing but aliases to your internal/external HDs

I resolved the matter by first ejecting my external HD that contained my "thought-to-be-damaged" iPhoto Library, then I deleted the non-aliased Folder from /Volumes, then remounted the external HD and launched iPhoto and specified the path to the iPhoto library on my external HD when it prompted me that the iPhoto Library could not be found.

Easy as pie

[CrystalDiaz]

THANK YOU!! This was my exact issue and your instructions to resolve were excellent. I am a recent pc convert so I still have a lot to learn. Thanks again for posting how you resolved it.