HELP! All photos in iphoto have DISAPPEARED!

[moosehill4]

Hello all and thanks for trying to help me. I have an ibook mac os x 10.2.8, and was exporting some photos last night when some message came up (sorry, I don't remember it exactly, something about finder...) and I said to restart (which is what it suggested) and when it restarted I went back to iphoto and NOTHING, not even the thumbnails. And all of my photo screen savers, EVERY PHOTO I had on this machine has vanished. Is not in the trash, I ran utility disk (restored with permission or something like that) and NOTHING.
AAARRRGGG, what can I do, any suggestions, any thoughts? Photos of my 3 year old and 18 month old, all on this computer and now nothing. I am crushed. Please help. Thank you very much. Kimberly
PS: And if you can't tell already, and to make matters worse, I am pc gal, not very mac literate. Great, eh?
THANK YOU!

 

[Ric]

Hi there and welcome !

First off stop using the iBook, just in case.

Would I be right in thinking that you have no backups ?

Depending on what has happened...can you have a look in this folder and see what's in there...

Users/yourusername/Pictures/iPhoto Library

regards

Ric

 

[moosehill4]

Hello Ric and thank you for your reply.

First, and in answer to your question, I do have copies of a lot of the photos on my other pc, but not all. I never backed up the photos on the mac, but will from now on.

I looked up the folder you suggested and under "albums" there are the usual "last import" and "photo library" (both empty) and then an odd paper icon that says "pending rotation" But when I click on any of them, they say ""there is no default application specified to open the document "_____"", and this message pops up for all 3 items listed.

(BTW, I also did a search for .jpg files and none of my photos are there. Not good, eh?) They are not in the trash folder either.

Thanks so much for any help/advise/options you may have. I really appreciate it. Oh, and I don't know if this is relevant, but the ibook just returned from having its second logic board replaced and this was the first time I had powered it up.

Thanks again!
Kimberly

 

[Ric]

Hi Kimberly,

...but the ibook just returned from having its second logic board replaced and this was the first time I had powered it up.

That doesn't sound good !

Do you have or know anyone that has any Data Recovery software such as DataRescue II ?

If not you may be best taking it to your nearest Apple Store to see if they will recover the pics for you...with your iBooks history I'm sure they would be glad to help !

With any Data Recovery it is imperative not to use the machine...because every time you use the machine you could possibly be overwriting the data that you want to recover...

I would expect all the photos still to be on the drive they just need to be recovered...but you need Data Rescue II (or similar) and an External Drive to recover them to.

regards

Ric

 

[Ric]

DataRescue II

There is a demo that you can download !

In case you want to have a look...I have this software and have it used to recover files on lot's of client's computers...You need an external drive as well.

regards

Ric