Lost photos IPhoto, HELP!!!

I've been trying to back up all my photos. I've been doing this for days, taking all the photos from the various albums, computers and back up disks I own. So, I've got all the periphery on the hard drive. I backed up the Mac too, first thing. All the pictures uploaded and or fixed with Adobe are on the harddrive, but not the IPhoto pics, so I started manually transferring the files. It worked with the first folder, but when i went to get the rest of the pictures from the Mac/IPhoto, I couldn't find them.
I have tried changing the permission, the read write stuff, but no luck. Now I'm starting to panic. There are 10, 000 pictures on here, somewhere but I can't find them. I don't want to turn off the computer in case it fucks up even more.

Ever since I put adobe on the computer I've had problems. I won't even load properly. I'm missing vital pieces from the software, but Adobe won't help. I'm so frustrated. Why did I buy a Mac?
I never had problems with PCs but everybody said "buy a Mac" for what, the wrist slitting factor?

So, if any of you have a clue what I should do, please, I would be grateful.
Ta