Hi all
Follow up to this post by me:
I took my Macbook to Genius Bar and for the first time ever, the "genius" got it wrong. Very disappointing. However I called the Apple help line and the fellow who answered fixed my problem.
The genius said that the only way to fix it was to do a restore..no thanks!!! I would have to find all the data since the restore point and recover bit by bit, as I understand it. She said either that or purchase the iPhoto version I required. Sorry, why?! I didn't cause the problem…Apple's Mavericks was the problem…it will not work 100% on my 5 1/2 yr old MacBook. She was adamant there was no other solution, so really her problem is her attitude. She should have thought: (a) It's not his fault, it's a Mac issue; (b) there HAS to be a solution that does not incur cost to me.
My attitude was that there HAS to be an easier way. There was:
The helpline did not charge me because I correctly insisted the problem was not of my making and not because my hardware.
The solution: I will explain as well as I can and I hope it's correct:
Because I had opened my iPhoto LIBRARY using Mavericks iPhoto, the library was permanently altered in a way that prevented use of the older iPhoto version.
(Mavericks is the first OS that includes iPhoto in the package).
However we created a new, empty library, fetched the old iPhoto application from my backup, transferred the old photos to the new library folder, and voila!
I felt I should let the community know, in case someone else has same problem. Call the help line if my explanation is not clear.
Charlie