Crashing iPhoto

Hello, I wonder if you can help me...

I recently got a lacie plug in hard-drive as my computer's incredibly
slow and I've been moving some stuff onto there. I copied music from
itunes, and some photos over onto it and then decided that it would be
easier to copy the whole application over. So I dragged itunes,
macmail and iphoto from applications onto the desktop and then copied
them onto the harddrive. Anyway, everything's still working with my
email and itunes, but now when I try and open iphoto, it opens but then
quits almost immediately, and I need to use this a lot for work, and
also I'd like to get the photos back. I've run the repair things and
this hasn't helped

Is there anything I can do? Look forward to hearing from you.

Vicky

Hi Vicki

It's not really a good idea to copy the apps to an external drive as links can be broken with their associated databases, as you've found out with iPhoto.

There no problem with moving your music and photos to the external drive, but Apple advises you still run the apps from the root/main drive.

You mention Mail and iTunes are working well, but I think they'll still linked to the database on the root drive. So there's really no saving in space there.

If you've already copied your music and photos to the external drive, re-link to them as follows:

iPhoto:

1. Quit iPhoto.
2. Hold down the Option key while opening iPhoto.
3. Click Find Library.
4. Assuming you have copied a folder from your User folder called iPhoto Library to the external drive. Choose this library on the external drive
5. Click Open.
6. The library appears in the iPhoto viewing area. Any photos you import will be added to this library.

iTunes:
Again assuming you have moved all your music to the external drive.

1. In iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences.
2. Click Advanced and then click General.
3. Click Change and select the new location for your files, ie on the external drive.
4. From now on, new songs and other items you import will be stored in the new location. Songs you've already imported stay in their current location.

Once everything is working from the external drive you can safely delete the photos and music from your root drive, and regain some space. The Mac needs as least 10gb of space to use as virtual memory.

To speed up your Mac, do consider increase your RAM memory to as much as you can afford. Usually 2gb is sufficient.