Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

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ourhearts137
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p.1 #1 · Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

I had been using lightroom for PP and file management for upwards of a year. Starting in October, lightroom started acting funny and against my better judgment I didn't back everything up and reinstall. Well, I've now learned that I've got several corrupt windows files and it's nearly impossible to get into windows, even in safe mode. I did not want to use any system recovery due to new client photos that I've recently loaded into Lightroom. Lightroom is now 100% inaccessible.

So I've got two questions and wondering how to proceed if someone could guide me.

I've got to reinstall windows, but I've had lightroom set up to auto import and need to retrieve all pertinent lightroom files. What is the best method of transferring those files to something like an external hard drive? If I am to understand correctly, the catalog file does not house my photos themselves, but is more of a file dedicated to file management of said photos. So with lightroom out of the question at the moment, do I save the catalog file itself or do I need to save the catalog file and the actual photo files? Sorry if this seems redundant, I'm in a daze because I'm not the best at lightroom. Any help or advice on retaining my files is greatly appreciated.

Dec 07, 2012 at 05:55 PM

marklankton
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p.1 #2 · Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

You absolutely need to find where the photo files themselves are located and save/backup those. The photos are not contained in the catalog file; that's the index to where the files are and what has been done to them but does not include the actual photos. If you can move the catalog file (the .lrcat file), the .lrdat file that is in the same directory, AND your photo files to an external hard drive you should be able to recover your Lightroom config once Windows is healthy again. But it's critical that you find those photo files and make sure they are safe.
Good luck!
Mark

Dec 07, 2012 at 06:08 PM

tlj5584
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p.1 #3 · Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

Here is what I would do:
#1 pull the hard drive out of the computer and put it in a USB enclosure
#2 Plug it in to a different computer that you know works fine.
#3 Manually copy all of the pictures and the lightroom catalog and all other LR files to 2 different locations (not on the suspect hard drive)
#4 Do a complete backup of the suspect hard drive

Now you can do what ever you want to try and get things up and running again. One more piece of advice, files don't just "go bad" like a piece of fruit. There is a cause for it. You should probably make sure that it is not a hardware cause before you rely on the same computer and hard drive again.

Also, pretend like I gave the standard lecture about backups.

Dec 07, 2012 at 07:27 PM

ourhearts137
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p.1 #4 · Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

Well I ran into a pretty standard issue occurring with iLivid and lightroom being installed. iLivid replaces some essential files to Lightroom as part of C++ runtime library. I found a pretty detailed thread about the issue and found some missing .dll files this morning. I was able to load lightroom but the catalogs are not loaded into it. I'd taken some photos off my camera through auto import and trying to work backwards that way to find the actual photo files. I'm still hunting to find the files and praying that they're here somewhere.

Dec 07, 2012 at 07:35 PM

Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #5 · Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

If LR imported the photos then they will be on your drive somewhere.
If you didn't specify the destination (which you should do) then they will likely be in your pictures folder .
If they are raw files then you can search for *.cr2 / nef (whatever the raw file is .) that will give you all the files of that type on the drive. Copy those onto a new drive . Also if you've done any work on the raw files you can find the side car files (.xmp) and copy those with your raw files . As long as they are in the same location as the corresponding raw file then Lightroom should pickup your edits .

You should also be able to find the lrcat file (and the other files with it) and should be able to point Lightroom to that file and you will have your Lightroom cat.

Once you have done all that, you really need to keep a handle on what and where Lightroom is saving your files. And specify some sort of folder structure on import.
Eg : I have all my files in folder generated by LR in months (and years) .
But equally you could import into folders by client (and personal) . Then BACK UP your files .

Dec 07, 2012 at 10:59 PM

Alan321
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p.1 #6 · Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

Like tlj5584 said, take that drive out. Do it now so that nothing else is written over any good stuff.

I would install a brand new drive (preferably a bigger one) and install Windows and all software on that. Then access the old drive purely as a data drive to recover whatever you can.

After all possible data has been recovered you can format that drive and do some reliability tests on it to see whether or not it is worth keeping as a backup drive. However, drives are fairly cheap and if there is any doubt about its reliability then it is quicker and easier to simply scrap it. It depends on how much you time is worth to you, and how much risk you are prepared to take.

- Alan

Dec 08, 2012 at 02:18 AM

mshi
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p.1 #7 · Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

If you can still boot into Windows, do that. Otherwise, boot from Windows disk or Recover Disk but don't install Windows. Get to the command prompt, such as at C:/>, type CHKDSK /R . CHKDSK can recover some bad files.

Dec 08, 2012 at 04:03 AM

15Bit
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p.1 #8 · Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

Buy a new hard drive for the reinstall - that one might well be on its way to the place that hard drives go to die.

Dec 08, 2012 at 06:28 AM

ourhearts137
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p.1 #9 · Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

Ian.Dobinson wrote:
If LR imported the photos then they will be on your drive somewhere.
If you didn't specify the destination (which you should do) then they will likely be in your pictures folder .
If they are raw files then you can search for *.cr2 / nef (whatever the raw file is .) that will give you all the files of that type on the drive. Copy those onto a new drive . Also if you've done any work on the raw files you can find the side car files (.xmp) and copy those with your raw files . As long as they are in the same location as the corresponding raw file then Lightroom should pickup your edits .

You should also be able to find the lrcat file (and the other files with it) and should be able to point Lightroom to that file and you will have your Lightroom cat.

Once you have done all that, you really need to keep a handle on what and where Lightroom is saving your files. And specify some sort of folder structure on import.
Eg : I have all my files in folder generated by LR in months (and years) .
But equally you could import into folders by client (and personal) . Then BACK UP your files .

Dec 08, 2012 at 06:28 AM

15Bit
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p.1 #10 · Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

For future consideration, LR will make backup copies of files on import. You might look into getting a separate hard disk for this.

Dec 08, 2012 at 06:55 AM

Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #11 · Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

ourhearts137 wrote:
Ian.Dobinson wrote:
If LR imported the photos then they will be on your drive somewhere.
If you didn't specify the destination (which you should do) then they will likely be in your pictures folder .
If they are raw files then you can search for *.cr2 / nef (whatever the raw file is .) that will give you all the files of that type on the drive. Copy those onto a new drive . Also if you've done any work on the raw files you can find the side car files (.xmp) and copy those with your raw files . As long as they are in the same location as the corresponding raw file then Lightroom should pickup your edits .

You should also be able to find the lrcat file (and the other files with it) and should be able to point Lightroom to that file and you will have your Lightroom cat.

Once you have done all that, you really need to keep a handle on what and where Lightroom is saving your files. And specify some sort of folder structure on import.
Eg : I have all my files in folder generated by LR in months (and years) .
But equally you could import into folders by client (and personal) . Then BACK UP your files .

I will have to do that first thing in the morning, I'm no longer in front of the computer. As I sit, I still was not able to locate the files, but I was searching for .raw files and not .cr2 files. I've also contacted a local tech supply store who does data retrieval and they might be able to restore lost files from my CF card if I'm unable to find them. I'm still optimistic but...yeah it's a hard thing to swallow.

Yeah , .raw would not get you anything . The raw file extension depends on the brand of your camera .
Canon is .cr2 , Nikon .nef .
If your using DNG files (I think oly use DNG and LR can convert to DNG on import) then it's .dng

Of course a search for .jpg will get you all your jpegs (but you need to refine searches for those as ou will have loads of tiny system ones) and .tif will get you your tiff files (again refine search)

Dec 08, 2012 at 09:42 AM

LA_Sportsman
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p.1 #12 · Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

tlj5584 wrote:
Here is what I would do:
#1 pull the hard drive out of the computer and put it in a USB enclosure
#2 Plug it in to a different computer that you know works fine.
#3 Manually copy all of the pictures and the lightroom catalog and all other LR files to 2 different locations (not on the suspect hard drive)
#4 Do a complete backup of the suspect hard drive

Now you can do what ever you want to try and get things up and running again. One more piece of advice, files don't just "go bad" like a piece of fruit. There is a cause for it. You should probably make sure that it is not a hardware cause before you rely on the same computer and hard drive again.

Also, pretend like I gave the standard lecture about backups.

This is your answer above. It will essentially make the drive an external drive that you can search. Good luck.

After you've completed recovery, there are plenty work flow solutions to help prevent future problems but I'll echo last line of quote and say post back then if you want tips on building a workflow that has backup protections at all points of photo processing.

Dec 08, 2012 at 02:00 PM

LA_Sportsman
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p.1 #13 · Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

please post back once you've done your search for *.nef or *.cr2

You also should know your camera's default prefix (Nikon is DSC) so you could also search for say *dsc*.*

Dec 08, 2012 at 02:05 PM

Garry Burton
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p.1 #14 · Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

@ ourhearts137

When you have your problem HD out. If your data is still corrupted or you want a have everything back to what it is.

GetDataBack for NTFS is brilliant!!
I had a corrupt drive and used GDB, everything was restored as it was, folder/file structure as it was.
It will take a week for the application to do it's thing but worth a go.

http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

Cheers Gaz

Dec 17, 2012 at 01:02 AM

sjordan93436
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p.1 #15 · Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

Spinrite. It is a 89$ program. You make a CD or USB image and boot to it. You choose the drive to analyze or fix. It does work magic. Try the external drive copy files that others suggested.

Spinrite is very slow on usb drives. Good news it does not need an working operating system. Sometimes the problem is close to the start and Windows cannot load. You start and select the level and walk away. It can take minutes or hours. In really bad cases days.

Dec 18, 2012 at 05:23 PM

Dennis M 1064
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p.1 #16 · Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

You may also want to have your computer stress tested, after you have backed up what you can from your hard drive. I had thought my hard drive was going on my laptop (PC) and it turned out my mother board was on its way out. She died on the operating table. The hard drive however, is fine.

Jan 07, 2013 at 01:02 PM

dwwjr56
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p.1 #17 · Lightroom woes and client photos might be missing...help?

I would be very careful of taking out the drive to bring to a third party to recover. If they specialize in that ok, but if its a best buy or staples or some other store like that, then i would be very careful.
Just my 2 cents, and best of luck to you on your recovery.

Jan 07, 2013 at 09:32 PM

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