iPhoto - my photos are gone - Help!

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bsavitz


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I've been having issues with my iMac lately especially when using Safari. Suddenly a translucent gray "curtain" will descend from the top of the screen and then the following message pops up:
"You need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button for several seconds or press the restart key."
When I switched to Firefox it didn't happen again however, yesterday I was transferring photos from my camera to iPhoto when it happened in the middle of the transfer and now all of my photos have vanished!
So, my main questions are, can I recover the photos and if so how? My second question is, what could be causing the "gray screen" problem?
My computer is the first version of the aluminum iMac and is running OX 10.4.11

Thanks
 
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bsavitz said:
I've been having issues with my iMac lately especially when using Safari. Suddenly a translucent gray "curtain" will descend from the top of the screen and then the following message pops up:
"You need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button for several seconds or press the restart key."
When I switched to Firefox it didn't happen again however, yesterday I was transferring photos from my camera to iPhoto when it happened in the middle of the transfer and now all of my photos have vanished!
So, my main questions are, can I recover the photos and if so how? My second question is, what could be causing the "gray screen" problem?
My computer is the first version of the aluminum iMac and is running OX 10.4.11

Thanks
Click to expand...
I can't answer for the gray screen problem other than probably worth using Disk Utilities or Onyx to repair permissions and see if that helps.

It is unlikely your photos are missing. You have probably accidently created a new empty iPhoto library. Open Finder ans type iPhoto in the Spotlight window. After you find your old library, double click on it and iPhoto should open with your photos.

If it doesn't you have bigger problems, so post back and we'll try to help.
 
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bsavitz


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Razormac said:
I can't answer for the gray screen problem other than probably worth using Disk Utilities or Onyx to repair permissions and see if that helps.

It is unlikely your photos are missing. You have probably accidently created a new empty iPhoto library. Open Finder ans type iPhoto in the Spotlight window. After you find your old library, double click on it and iPhoto should open with your photos.

If it doesn't you have bigger problems, so post back and we'll try to help.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately that did not work. Any other suggestions? I find it hard to believe that the entire library of 7,000+ photos was actually deleted under those circumstances but I guess it's possible.
 
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bsavitz said:
Unfortunately that did not work. Any other suggestions? I find it hard to believe that the entire library of 7,000+ photos was actually deleted under those circumstances but I guess it's possible.
Click to expand...
Which means the library is probably corrupted. I'm assuming you don't have a back up. The next thing to try would be file recovery software. As you say all 7000 can't just be gone, but may be tricky or impossible to fish them out.

I haven't done much with iPhoto (I use Aperture) so hopefully one of our iPhoto gurus will chime in.
 
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Here's a follow up just in case anyone is interested.
I took my computer to the Genius Bar at the Apple store. They said the gray screen was symptomatic of a failing hard drive but it tested out okay. It turned out to be an OS issue. I had been using filevault which complicated the issue and is what may have caused the problem in the first place. I doubt I will use it again.
They had to wipe the hard drive and they upgraded my OS from Tiger to Snow Leopard. It took 2-1/2 hours all together and it was done for free even though my computer was a year out of warranty. Talk about great service...just another reason why I love Apple products.
Luckily I had backed up my photos on an external hard drive so they are now back on iPhoto although I need to organize them into events again.
I thought I had backed up my iTunes library but apparently I had not, so all of my song purchases are gone.
Anyone know if I can retrieve them from iTunes?
 
RavingMac

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bsavitz said:
Here's a follow up just in case anyone is interested.
I took my computer to the Genius Bar at the Apple store. They said the gray screen was symptomatic of a failing hard drive but it tested out okay. It turned out to be an OS issue. I had been using filevault which complicated the issue and is what may have caused the problem in the first place. I doubt I will use it again.
They had to wipe the hard drive and they upgraded my OS from Tiger to Snow Leopard. It took 2-1/2 hours all together and it was done for free even though my computer was a year out of warranty. Talk about great service...just another reason why I love Apple products.
Luckily I had backed up my photos on an external hard drive so they are now back on iPhoto although I need to organize them into events again.
I thought I had backed up my iTunes library but apparently I had not, so all of my song purchases are gone.
Anyone know if I can retrieve them from iTunes?
Click to expand...

If you are running the latest iteration of iTunes, login and in the right sidebar under Quick Links you will see a new link for purchases, click on it and select All Songs from the left side bar and you should be able to re download everything.
 
RadioSaigon

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Razormac said:
If you are running the latest iteration of iTunes...
Click to expand...

hmmm... I thought I was, but I surely have no links to purchased items in my right sidebar or under the Store menu as Apple support pages suggest. My OS is 10.7.2, iTunes is 10.5 and I'm running IOS5 on my iPhone. Any suggestions?
 
RavingMac

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RadioSaigon said:
hmmm... I thought I was, but I surely have no links to purchased items in my right sidebar or under the Store menu as Apple support pages suggest. My OS is 10.7.2, iTunes is 10.5 and I'm running IOS5 on my iPhone. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Not sure what to suggest.
Just checked again and now right above Purchased is iTunes Match with a blue highlighted "coming soon"
 

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