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WTF! Big iPhoto problem

C

choco6

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 29, 2007
11
0
Today my 12" Powerbook would not wake from sleep when I hit the spacebar, so I restarted it with the power button. When I opened iPhoto, I was greeted with this message:

"An error occurred while trying to save your photo library. Some recent changes may be lost. Make sure your hard disk has enough space and that iPhoto is able to access the iPhoto Library folder."

When I clicked on any individual photo, an image of an exclamation point showed up instead. Not a single one of my pictures open up. Then, when I opened up the iPhoto library folder, almost all of the folders from 2007 were empty. My camera is set correctly and they would have been in those folders. I am in New Zealand studying abroad and I've taken over 1,300 pictures. The last time I backed up these photos was a month ago, so I'm missing several hundred pictures. I would be absolutely devastated if I lost them.

Is there any way to fix this? I can usually fix these problems, but I am completely lost with this. I have no idea what to do and am paralyzed at the thought of losing those pictures. Any help will be GREATLY appreciated.
 
FJ218700 said:
right-click on the iPhoto Library icon and "show package contents" your photos are still there in the "modified" or "original" state.
Click to expand...

Where is the "show package contents" option? I right-clicked on the iPhoto Library folder and that didn't come up. I perused through both my modified and original photos. All of my recent photos aren't there.
 
crap, is this iPhoto 08 or 06? If 06, then disregard the "show package contents". If you found the photos, burn them (but keep the originals and mods in the library folder) and then try to restore the thumbnail library

also, do you "copy files to iPhoto library", if so the most recent ones are in the lib somewhere, just not archived with the ones you found. Should be anyway.
 
FJ218700 said:
crap, is this iPhoto 08 or 06? If 06, then disregard the "show package contents". If you found the photos, burn them (but keep the originals and mods in the library folder) and then try to restore the thumbnail library

also, do you "copy files to iPhoto library", if so the most recent ones are in the lib somewhere, just not archived with the ones you found. Should be anyway.
Click to expand...

this is iphoto 06. i haven't found the photos, even in spotlight. and i don't strictly copy files to iphoto library, i copy them to a separate folder, too. no luck.

alright, so i just tried restoring the thumbnail images by doing the "rebuild iphoto" option. none of the photos from before august 1st, 2007 had their thumbnails restored. all the other ones did, but i still can't open those files from within iphoto. that seems extremely random to me. it just got rid of the last two months worth of photos.

should i check all of the options to rebuild the library? i don't want to beat myself any further into the ground.
 
spotlight may not have had time to index full yet. When you say you inported into another folder, do you mean iPhoto album, or another location of the HD. I'm assuming that you mean iPhoto album or else the photos would be on your HD. I would suggest downloading the freeware app TinkerTool, enabling "show hidden and system files" from within its preferences, and then looking around again. can't hurt. If you're 100% sure that the pictures were deleted, rebuild the library.

again, if you were importing into an iPhoto album directly, but didn't have "copy to iPhoto library checked in the iPhoto prefs, the pictures were never deposited anywhere on your HD, unless you also dropped them on the HD elsewhere. If that option was not checked, the pictures were still on your camera or original source, and the photo library are just thumbnail aliases of the originals.

By the way, did you check the trash (iPhoto and system)

sorry if you already knew most of this, just trying to be thorough.
 
FJ218700 said:
By the way, did you check the trash (iPhoto and system)

sorry if you already knew most of this, just trying to be thorough.
Click to expand...

as soon as i read that, i got a horrible feeling in my stomach. i remembered when i first booted the computer back up. it was acting strange (icons on the desktop are invisible, and when i click on the text of the file it disappears completely), but thought nothing of it at the time. then i saw my trash can was full of recovered files from filevault's standard procedure during a reboot. there were more than usual, but again, i thought nothing of it and deleted them. that was several hours ago.

i think that, somehow, months worth of my photos may have been deleted when i emptied the trash. how they were even put in the trash can, i have no clue. but i really think they may have been in there.

i'm at such a loss. no one in new zealand uses macs, and there are no apple stores with genius bars to go to. after four years of owning this computer, it's finally coming undone. i just wish i could get all of those pictures back.
 
well if they were in the trash., unless you did a secure-empty, they are still on your disk. OSX will keep them until it needs the space, at which point they will be overwritten.

I've never tried to recover deleted itme myself, but ask around here somewhere,

Same thing for the digital camera, pics might still be on there unless you have overwritten.
 
FJ218700 said:
well if they were in the trash., unless you did a secure-empty, they are still on your disk. OSX will keep them until it needs the space, at which point they will be overwritten.
Click to expand...

i actually ended up spending $100 on a program called 'data rescue II' last night. it was worth it. i was able to recover almost all of the pictures. unfortunately, my computer is still acting ridiculous (invisible icons on the desktop marked only by the name of the file, then they disappear when you click on them). i'll probably start another thread on how to fix all the other stuff.

anyways, thanks for all of your help guys. i appreciate that you didn't throw useless advice at me like "backup in the future." cheers.
 
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