I have an issue when I fill up an external HD, and need to move to a new one.
How or what must I do to be able to go back to the external HD that became filled when I need to for images, when LR does not recoginize it. I get the ? to all those folders.
Its the same Catalog living on the internal SSD computer.
What are you doing with the new drive? Are you just starting to fill it with new images?
If so I'm not sure what you did to make LR unable to see the old drive and images.
If you are copying all images from the old to the (bigger) new drive then just have it find the images on the new drive, but then I don't know why you'd need to access the old one again.
I found in my situation (renamed the storage drive), I had to reimport the files using the "add" option. Took forever, but I started it close to bedtime, so it was complete in the morning.
gregfountain wrote:
I found in my situation (renamed the storage drive), I had to reimport the files using the "add" option. Took forever, but I started it close to bedtime, so it was complete in the morning.
If you do that you lose all the edits you have done, unless you have sidecar files for all of them and import that data too. Don't "Add" the photos, you want Lightroom to find them so the data in the LrC catalog is reconnected with the photos. The Lightroom Queen article goes into detail about how to reconnect the photos with the catalog.
dclark wrote:
If you do that you lose all the edits you have done. Don't "Add" the photos, you want Lightroom to find them so the data in the LrC catalog is reconnected with the photos. The Lightroom Queen article goes into detail about how to reconnect the photos with the catalog.
Thanks Dave, I didn't know that. Lucky for me I don't make a living on my photos so it's just an inconvenience, but really good to know that. Thanks for sharing the link.
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Thanks Dave, I'll dig into your link. Much appreciated
mcbroomf wrote:
What are you doing with the new drive? Are you just starting to fill it with new images?
If so I'm not sure what you did to make LR unable to see the old drive and images.
If you are copying all images from the old to the (bigger) new drive then just have it find the images on the new drive, but then I don't know why you'd need to access the old one again.
What are you doing with the new drive? Are you just starting to fill it with new images?
I am not copying the files from the one that filled up, and adding them to a new external. Counter productive, redundent. There is only so much room on external, and the new one is now a larger capacity. I did do that the last time I expanded my external that is now full. Why would I want to waste all that space with the new external when I already have the images stored on that external that is now full. On the external that became full has my entire catalog from 2008 to 2024. The new external drive starts with 2025 till it becomes filled up. By the way I have a backup external that became full, as well as the new one.
My Catalog resides on my internal SSD drive.
I just need LR to recognize each external when I connect it to the computer, and not give the ? on the folders.
Yes, that's what I thought. So I don't understand how LR lost the old images (2008-2024) on the old drive. I also add new drives to meet capacity but my old ones don't go away and I don't get (?) on any images and have to re-find them.
At what point in the process of adding a new drive did everything get lost? Too late for this drive adder but if you can find out why next time it will make the transition a little easier.
The main reason I migrate old sets of images to a new drive is drive age and the (much) smaller size of pretty old drives.
Why would you want to put all your files on that new drive? So LR knows where all your pictures are and can find them.
As to your old drive with the previous years of pictures, LR can't find them if they aren't mounted (you get the "?"). LR can't find them if they are mounted and have a new drive name/letter for the old drive (the drive looks like a different drive, basically a drive rename). You would need to tell LR (by "locating" the old files for LR) where they are since there is now a "new" drive (that is actually your old drive) that has your files on it. Are you changing the port your old drive is plugging into?
LR remembers my old drives and what is on them, but I don't change their names or locations (same drive name, same cable connection, same port).
The easiest way to locate missing or recovered image files and folders in LrC is to have a specific single folder somewhere above all of the image-bearing folders. Then, any time you point LrC at that top folder, in any computer that has the relevant catalogue, LrC will find all of the catalogued files and folders that are below it. One step; all done.
In part, this is why you need a working backup drive or drives with your image file structures on it or them. Plus a separate backup of your system drive that you can reboot from as if your computer had never crashed. Near instant total recovery.
This works when you copy everything to a new bigger or faster drive, replace a failed drive with a backup drive, migrate to a new computer, whatever. Give LrC a single target for its existing / recovered catalogue to look for and it will find the the whole library under that target.
You will not be able to have LrC instantly load two drives with the same library, but replacing one with the other is dead easy.
At any time while LrC is not active, you can remove the library drive, clone it, put either one back, and fire up LrC as if nothing happened. I use an external cloning dock to back up my library drive and my system drive.
