External hard drive with iPhoto library doesn't open
It sounds like you made a copy of the library after it was corrupted. Your only option I suppose is to grab the images and start a new library.

Find the original, if possible, right click on it and choose "Show Package Contents".



In there navigate to "Masters". In there, run a search for Kind=Image.



Copy all of the results out of there, to a safe location.
Then do another search for Kind="Movie", and copy those as well.