iPhoto missing pictures (using External Drive)

[OceanJenG]

Hi, I'm new to posting. I've read many archives, but I can't seem to find a post could fix my problem.

I keep my iPhoto library on an external firewire drive. I keep an alias to it in the Photos folder on the laptop. If the external drive wasn't mounted it used to warn me when starting iPhoto, however, recently I was viewing pictures and the power cord yanked out of the external drive and was dismounted w/ iPhoto running. Got the standard device removal error, but now I can't seem to fix my iPhoto library.

1) I have no pictures visible in any albums or the library, but all albums remain and many details as well.

2) When I start up the iPhoto library w/o the hard drive mounted (AND the alias removed from the Photos folder), it doesn't warn me about but does a super quick (3 second) thumbnail rebuild and there I am with my albums and no pictures. (meaning the gray dashed line boxes where pictures should be)

I have over 10,000 pictures which are all fully intact on the external drive. I've repaired permissions and tried re-installing iPhoto, but I can't figure out where in the world it finds this data when I start iPhoto if the external drive isn't even mounted and I've removed the alias anyway.

Any ideas on what I need to get the pictures to show up again in my iPhoto library and in the albums?

Thanks!
JenG

[johngpt]

JenG, has this question been answered (not here obviously, but maybe elsewhere)?

Holding the option key down while clicking iPhoto to launch it will bring up a dialog for choosing your iPhoto Library. Clicking on Choose Library will allow you to navigate to your external hard drive and choosing the appropriate folder.

Hope this helps. It's unusual for a question such as yours to have gone unanswered here at the forums.