# External hard drive missing photos



## [email protected] (Apr 14, 2015)

Please help, I have spent the last four months+importing all my photos from my external hard drive. Plus scanning, and adding new ones from my cameras. Filing them all on my Photography 2TB hard drive at import.  After many hours of following instructions I finally got the work flow down. Recently I have noticed that Lightroom is not picking up any of those photos, with my Hard Drive plugged in and shows the dreaded ? . Also noticed that I now have a second PHOTOGRAPHY 2tB I . Which is showing some recently scanned pics, which Lightroom recognises.

However, when I go into the develop mode it does not show me that the photos are missing, and allows me to develop. Also the photos in my Collections are all there with out the dreaded ? .

i have tried to go to find missing photos, and the message I get is already exists, merge? Have done that and nothing changes. Restarted, done can think of. Desperate for some in sight? Thanks


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## AMG (Apr 14, 2015)

Hi Heever, welcome to LR forum.

Are you running Windows? Could it be that you disconnected your EHD and upon reconnecting it later it was assigned another Drive letter? Please give some more background on the situation as it's difficult to give an answer based on the tiny amount mentio presented above. 
What do you mean by "_Also noticed that I now have a second PHOTOGRAPHY 2tB I_"
a> what is "2tB *I*" b>is that a second EHD?

Where are your pics currently, where is your catalog, have you made a backup of pics and catalog to another EHD just in case all goes horribly wrong?

When you import from camera what is your import process. 
Eg. CF card to EHD/HDD, then in LR choose import from EHD/HDD, or perhaps Import from CF card Move/Add/Copy to ....


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## [email protected] (Apr 14, 2015)

Thank you, I am working on a Mac. I have stored all my photos on a seagate external hard drive. When it is plugged in it comes up as Photography 2TB. 
So, my pictures are not stored on my computer but on my external hard drive. I import with embedded & sidecar option so I guess that is why Lightroom is allowing me to work on them even tho it can't find them. 

I plug in my external hard drive, find the correct file on the right hand side of the screen, add to an existing folder or make a new one and then import my photos from my camera, or from  my SanDisc ( which I am currently using to scan all my non digital photos) through Lightroom onto my external hard drive.

When I open light room under folders, under volumes, I can see my external hard drive Photography 2TB, With all my existing files, 48384 photos. However next to every one of those files is that ? . All my key words are still in tact. If I try to import re import and click new photos, it shows me that all the photos have been imported.  
So my catalogue, I only have one, is on my computer. And yes, I have back up time machine. 
I recently down loaded a temporary  recovery scan disc app, with my hard drive plugged in, would this have done something?

I have Mac keeper and have done a virus scan, all is clear. Hope this helps?


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## AMG (Apr 14, 2015)

IIRC you should be able to r-click on the ?. One of the options is FIND MISSING FOLDER - click on it and navigate in the popup Finder screen to where that folder is.
You'll need to repeat the process for the other subfolders.

Once you have imported pics in to LR try not to move photo folders and or pics outside of LR. IF you do the links to where your photos are will be broken in LR.
Moving around folders and photos in Finder is ok as long as they have NOT yet been imported in to LR.


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## [email protected] (Apr 14, 2015)

Yes, I have seen the consequences of what happens when I have moved around files that have already been imported into Lightroom . Problem is this has happened without me doing ANY of that and to ALL my photo ALL AT ONCE.

Remember that 2nd folder option I talked about? If I do as you say and locate the missing folder, nothing happens until I restart the program, it then shows up in the folder that says PHOTOGRAPHY 2GB 1? This folder has none of my other folders in it. Yet when I go to import photos this hard drive option does not show up and the folders are showing the same as on the original hard drive? Is this making any sense?.? Seems like Lightroom is just not picking up my original files except for import ? 

Also, when I open up Lightroom, a message comes onto the screen saying (sync is off)


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## AMG (Apr 15, 2015)

I'm at a loss as to what to advise how you could resolve this. I'd suggest to drop a PM in one of the Guru's mailboxes to point them to your thread to see if they have more options for you to explore.


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 15, 2015)

It would be a big help if you could post a screenshot of your Folders Panel (with the external hard drive connected), so that we can better understand the issue that you're having.


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## AMG (Apr 15, 2015)

Jim, appreciated you dropping by.


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## [email protected] (Apr 15, 2015)

Thank You, AMG. I will send photo shortly, Jim.


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## [email protected] (Apr 15, 2015)

the first image is the screen I get on opening LightRoom with my Seagate External hard drive connected. The second is what I get when I press import. You will notice when I press import the 2nd option of my PHOTOGRAPHY 2GM 1 disapears?


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 15, 2015)

OK, this looks like one of the Mac-specific problems which crops up from time to time. To try to fix it you need to do the following:

1. Take a catalog backup....this is the restore point should anything go wrong with the rest of the procedure.

2. Operating in the Folders Panel, start off by right-clicking on the "/" entry, and select "Hide This Parent".

3. Repeat that action for the entries below, working top-down. So hide "Users", then "judyvandenheever", then "Volumes", then "PHOTOGRAPHY 2TB", then "PHOTOGRAPHY 2TB 1".

4. Somewhere in the process you should find that everything in the Folders Panel disappears. Don't be alarmed (that's why we have a catalog backup, right?), simply close Lightroom, then restart it....and hopefully everything should appear as normal!

Let us know how you get on....


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## AMG (Apr 15, 2015)

Judy, I'm stumped. At first I thought your data was actually on your HDD but I was able to recreate your folder structure in a test catalogue (I too have all my pics on a EHD, but my top level folder in LR is PHOTOGRAPHS, 
the upper parent folders are not visible) to verify that the next entry under Volumes was indeed the EHD. 

The only thing I noticed is that you misspelled Stellenbosch. 

Let's see if Jim can shed some light on this - I'd love to see how this works out favourably.
Cheers,

Rob
EDIT: I see he's already responded


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## [email protected] (Apr 15, 2015)

Okay, Jim, I have done as instructed, gone through all the folders and selected "Hide this Parent" . Had to do every one of my sub folder individually? Some disappeared. Others had a pop up asking me to do something create subfolder or cancel. and this is what I got. after I restarted. I had to do it twice as the first time while I was doing it my END vanished? When I restarted they "Both Appeared". I now notice that the photos that have been stored on my mac's hard drive also have the dreaded ?. read completely flummoxed. Judy


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## [email protected] (Apr 15, 2015)

Jim, this is what my EHD looks like, all the folders are not in alphabetical order with the major headings removed?


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## [email protected] (Apr 15, 2015)

sorry that was not a very good example, perhaps this one is better. thanks Judy


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 16, 2015)

OK, using that folder "1 Academy art" as an example, can you show me a screenshot of the folder using Finder, to include the full path back to the root of the hard drive?

Can I also have the same for one of the missing folders on the Macintosh HD drive as well?


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## [email protected] (Apr 16, 2015)

Morning Jim, using finder, for '1 Academy art"one screen shot showing on my Mac, the other from my EHD. Next screen shot to follow.


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## [email protected] (Apr 16, 2015)

one of the missing folders from my Macintosh HD. I have not been able to do any filing through Lightroom as all my folders are missing. And do not want to "tidy up" outside of Lightroom


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 16, 2015)

Thanks. Going back into Lightroom, select that "1 Academy art" folder on the external drive again, then go over to the Metadata panel and hover your cursor over the name of the folder that shows against the "Folder" entry (hover over the actual folder name, i.e. 1 Academy art), and a tool-tip will pop up which shows the full path that Lightroom has recorded in its database for that folder. Can you make a careful note of that and then tell me what it says.

I'm trying to establish why Lightroom doesn't see that folder, if we can figure that out we might understand what's happened. I have a feeling that using "Hide This Parent" on the sub-folders may have caused a problem, and we might be better reverting back to the catalog backup and starting again. But not yet, let's see if we can figure it out first.


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## [email protected] (Apr 16, 2015)

hovering over the PHOTOGRAPHY 2TB folder I get /volumes/PHOTOGRAPHY 2TB. Hovering over the MACINTOSH HD I get,  / .


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 16, 2015)

OK, so it looks as though using the "Hide This Parent" on the sub-folders has indeed messed with the catalog quite extensively. You could get everything back but only by re-linking all the missing sub-folders, and as there seem to be hundreds of those it would take quite a long time to do. How do you feel about that? The alternative would be revert to the catalog backup that you took in the step 1 of my original instructions, then start the procedure again. If you want to do that, you'd need to do the following:

1. With Lightroom closed, MOVE the current catalog out of it's normal location to a secure place, say temporarily on your Desktop. Don't delete it.
2. Then COPY the catalog backup that you took in step one back into the normal catalog location (using copy will allow the backup to remain, so no need to run the backup again).
3. Open that catalog and confirm you're back to the original problem.
4. If so, repeat the instructions in my original post from step 2 onwards. This time stop after doing "Hide This Parent" on the "PHOTOGRAPHY 2TB" and "2TB 1" drives, then restart Lightroom and see what the catalog now looks like.

Let me know what you'd prefer to do.


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## [email protected] (Apr 16, 2015)

Hi Jim, decided to go the catalog route. After I opened Lightroom again with the back up it came back as it was, only none of the images could be seen. I have included the screen shots of the various steps.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




then I did the original steps
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




this was the pop up I was referring to. I did click the subfolders and not cancel?
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




and this is now what I have.:(


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 16, 2015)

That actually looks a lot better! Looking back over the thread, all those missing folders were in fact already "missing" before we started the recovery, but the initial recovery efforts "lost" the intermediary folders of the full path back to the hard drive. But with the latest recovery attempt, not only has the hard drive situation been fixed, the intermediary folders have been retained.

However, for some reason that's probably related to the original Volumes mix-up, Lightroom thinks that all the root-level folders on the PHOTOGRAPHY 2TB drive are in fact all under a single root-level folder, also called PHOTOGRAPHY 2TB, which explains why they are all still listed as "missing". So what you need to do is tell Lightroom where those folders really are, and you do that simply by right-clicking on each of the 6 top-level folders in turn (2 SCANNED PICS, 3 ITHEMBA, 4 FAMILY, 8 KIRTLINGTON, 9 H 24, 10 INFORMATION) and for each one browse to and select the folder on the external drive.

But there's still a problem relating to the folders that were on the PHOTOGRAPHY 2TB 1 drive, they seem to have disappeared (unless they are further down the list in the Folders Panel?). Could you show me the numbers in the Catalog Panel? And could you go to the Library menu and check "Show Photos in Subfolders" and then provide another screenshot of the Folders Panel?


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## [email protected] (Apr 16, 2015)

Whew! I am pleased that it is looking better. The PHOTOGRAPHY 2 TB 1 drive is still there and has some of the Folders from my PHOTOGRAPHY 2 TB drive. Will follow instructions in the mean time here is the screen shot. thanks so much for all this help, really appreciate it.


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## [email protected] (Apr 16, 2015)

Jim, do I click Merge? I recall reading somewhere that it was not a good idea because of possible duplication
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




?


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## [email protected] (Apr 14, 2015)

Please help, I have spent the last four months+importing all my photos from my external hard drive. Plus scanning, and adding new ones from my cameras. Filing them all on my Photography 2TB hard drive at import.  After many hours of following instructions I finally got the work flow down. Recently I have noticed that Lightroom is not picking up any of those photos, with my Hard Drive plugged in and shows the dreaded ? . Also noticed that I now have a second PHOTOGRAPHY 2tB I . Which is showing some recently scanned pics, which Lightroom recognises.

However, when I go into the develop mode it does not show me that the photos are missing, and allows me to develop. Also the photos in my Collections are all there with out the dreaded ? .

i have tried to go to find missing photos, and the message I get is already exists, merge? Have done that and nothing changes. Restarted, done can think of. Desperate for some in sight? Thanks


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## [email protected] (Apr 16, 2015)

I also think that this is what I tried in the beginning,  ( see first post) and it did not seem to change anything?


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 16, 2015)

I'm still puzzled that the PHOTOGRAPHY 2TB 1 is still there. From that screenshot it looks as though there are two partitions on that drive, that's certainly what Lightroom is seeing. Is that a possibility? 

After you relink the first top-level folder, can you take another screenshot of the Folders Panel, with both of the PHOTOGRAPHY drives expanded?


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 16, 2015)

OK, hold up for a minute. Cancel that Merge dialog, and just tell me which folder you were working on when you right-clicked.


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## [email protected] (Apr 16, 2015)

I was working on the first folder on my PHOTOGRAPHY 2GB  2 Scanned Pics. 1 Creative Pics are on the  PHOTOGRAPHY 2GB 1 drive? Here is a screen shot of my  PHOTOGRAPHY 2GB drive when I open it outside Lightroom. This is what comes up when I pick the import button. Everything all in order on ONE drive.


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## [email protected] (Apr 16, 2015)

So I am not able to relink the top-level folder without getting the Merge request. If I double click on 2 scanned pics It takes me straight to the  PHOTOGRAPHY 2GB. drive and to the correct folder. But says it already exists?


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 16, 2015)

OK, that's most odd. Lightroom is "seeing" two separate drives, one with the same attributes as the internal drive, the other 1.8tb. To fix this, I think we need to try to get Lightroom to forget about the PHOTOGRAPHY drive(s) completely, then reintroduce it again, and hopefully LR will then "see" one drive and one set of folders. To do that, we need to be a little careful and methodical. 

1. Again, start with another catalog backup to create another (better) restore point.
2. Outside Lightroom can you create 9 dummy (empty) folders on the internal Macintosh HD drive, in the root directory or on the Desktop, wherever it's easier for you to find them. Call them Dummy 1, Dummy 2, Dummy3......up to Dummy 9.
3. Then in the Lightroom Folders Panel, starting with the 6 top-level folders under PHOTOGRAPHY 2TB, right-click on the first ("2 SCANNED PICS") and select "Find Missing Folder". In the resulting File Browser, navigate to and select the "Dummy 1" folder on the internal drive.
4. Repeat for "3 ITHEMBA", this time linking to "Dummy 2"
....then the same for "4 FAMILY" linking to "Dummy 3"
...."8 KIRTLINGTON" to "Dummy 4"
...."9 H 24" to "Dummy 5"
...."10 INFORMATION" to "Dummy 6"

5. A this point, you may be left with the single "PHOTOGRAPHY 2TB" *folder*, with a zero photo count. If that happens, and provided that the photo count is zero, you can right-click on that *folder* and select "Remove". I hope/expect that the top PHOTOGRAPHY 2TB *drive* will then disappear from the Folders Panel. If it does, carry on as below. If it does NOT, stop right here, and give me another screenshot of the Folders Panel showing that drive.

6. Assuming the first drive has disappeared, move to the second (lower) PHOTOGRAPHY 2TB drive. Right-click on the first top-level folder ("1 Creative Pics"), now select "*Update Folder Location*", and link to "Dummy 7" on the internal drive.
7. Repeat for "2 SCANNED PICS" and link to Dummy 8, then finally repeat for "4 FAMILY" and link to "Dummy 9".

8. Now, assuming that the "PHOTOGRAPHY 2TB 1" photo count is zero, right-click and select "Remove", and the second PHOTOGRAPHY 2TB" drive should disappear. If so, a screenshot of your Folders Panel would be good, after which we'll start working on putting things back together.


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## [email protected] (Apr 16, 2015)

Okay the  PHOTOGRAPHY 2GB Drives have been removed . Not sure I am too concerned about the other photos on my Macintosh HD, as I have those stored on another External Hard drive and was in the process of sorting them out so that I can eventually remove them off my lap top.


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 16, 2015)

OK, but what happened to Dummy 1?


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## [email protected] (Apr 16, 2015)

He got missed out unfortunatly, hence, dummy 7+ its a little late here:shock:


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 16, 2015)

No worries. If I'm reading the numbers correctly then, Dummy 2 is "2 SCANNED PICS", and so on down to Dummy 7 being "10 INFORMATION"? Dummy 7+ is "1 Creative Pics", Dummy 8 is "2 SCANNED PICS", and Dummy 9 is "4 FAMILY"?

If that is all correct, we can start trying to put things back together. Start off by right-clicking on "Dummy 2" and select "Update Folder Location", then navigate to and select "2 SCANNED PICS" on the external PHOTOGRAPHY 2TB drive. Dummy 2 should disappear, the PHOTOGRAPHY 2TB drive should reappear, and under that should be the "2 SCANNED PICS" folder. Please expand that folder and tell me if all the sub-folders are there, and NOT showing the missing folder "?" mark. If so, select a sub-folder and confirm that thumbnails start to appear in the Grid.

Does it look OK?


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## [email protected] (Apr 16, 2015)

Hallelujah! All there. :angel:


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 16, 2015)

Great. If you want to carry on tonight, you can do the next 5 in the same way, but please make sure that you get the links correctly:

Dummy 3 to "3 ITHEMBA"
Dummy 4 to "4 FAMILY"
Dummy 5 to "8 KIRTLINGTON"
Dummy 6 to "9 H 24"
Dummy 7 to "10 INFORMATION"

Check as you go through them that all the sub-folders show up correctly.

Then when you're ready to do the rest:

Dummy 7+ links to "1 Creative Pics"
Dummy 8 links to "2 SCANNED PICS"
Dummy 9 links to "4 FAMILY"

Note that these last two will generate that Merge dialog message again. It should be Ok to select "Merge".

When all have been done, you can delete those Dummy folders, and if you could post a (hopefully) final screenshot of the Folders Panel so that I can check that all is OK, that would be great.


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## [email protected] (Apr 16, 2015)

all went well for 3 Ithemba, 4 Family and then...
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




should I keep trying?


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 16, 2015)

OK, it looks like you linked Dummy 5 and Dummy 6 incorrectly. I'll need to type up some new instructions to try to correct that, which I'll do tomorrow morning (it's getting late here too!). You can do Dummy 7, and if you want you can also do Dummy 7+, Dummy 8 and Dummy 9.

Don't delete those Dummy files yet, we may need them.


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## [email protected] (Apr 16, 2015)

Looks like I mixed 2 , possibly 3 of the folders, ? wasn't Careful enough! Should I try and remove them and then put them back? .... in the morning.


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## [email protected] (Apr 16, 2015)

okay, I continued with the rest and they all went in fine.


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 16, 2015)

NO! Don't remove them, that would be a bad idea.

Suggest you finish the others, tomorrow if you prefer, then give me a screenshot so I can work out the corrective action needed.


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 16, 2015)

[email protected] said:


> okay, I continued with the rest and they all went in fine.



Looks like we cross-posted. So that final screenshot would be good so that I can advise on the last bit of remedial work.


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## Heeve[email protected] (Apr 17, 2015)

It appears that the photos that are in 8 KIRTLINGTON  belong to 9 H 24, judging by the subfolders.


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 17, 2015)

Yes it does, but also "7 MEYRICKTON" belongs to "8 KIRTLINGTON".

To fix this, proceed in the following order:

1. Right-click on "8 KIRTLINGTON", select "Update Folder Location", then navigate to the external drive and select "9 H 24". Confirm that the photos in "9 H 24" are then found OK.

2. If 1 above worked OK, then right-click on "7 MEYRICKTON", select "Update Folder Location", then navigate to and select "8 KIRTLINGTON"....and that should fix everything on the external drive.

Let me know if that works out.


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## [email protected] (Apr 17, 2015)

Okay, that worked out well. Not sure why the arrow next to "7 MEYRICKTON" is still grey, as all the photos are there? Just another question. When my PHOTOGRAPHY 2GB hard drive is plugged in, my computer shows a pop, to say the drive was not disconnected properly .... often. It is still connected and 99% of the time as far as I can tell I have not moved it or Knocked it. Could this be the possible cause of the problem. Or may it have happened on down loading a temporary scan disc recovery app off the web with my hard drive plugged in? It was around this time that it happened?


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 17, 2015)

The arrows next to folders only light up when that folder is a parent folder, i.e. it indicates that clicking on the arrow will expand the folder structure for that particular folder. So "7 MEYRICKTON" not having a lit up arrow indicates to me that it's a single folder, with no sub-folders. If there are sub-folders, Lightroom hasn't been made aware of them, i.e. all the 169 photos that Lightroom "sees" are in the folder itself, not in a sub-folder.

The problem with the external hard drive message to say it's been disconnected is something that I see from time to time with one or more of my external drives, though it hasn't caused any issues with Lightroom (yet!), so I honestly don't know what caused the problem, it was very weird. But looks OK now?


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## [email protected] (Apr 17, 2015)

Thanks again for all your help, just love seeing everything in place again. .... Now back to work, still got lots more filing and sorting to do till I can get onto the fun stuff.


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 17, 2015)

Well, it's a relief to me too....I've seen some complicated folder problems before, but nothing quite like that! Enjoy!


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## AMG (Apr 17, 2015)

Been following the thread and appreciate you stepping in Jim & resolving it. 
@ Judy, fingers crossed all behaves from now on.


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## [email protected] (Apr 14, 2015)

Please help, I have spent the last four months+importing all my photos from my external hard drive. Plus scanning, and adding new ones from my cameras. Filing them all on my Photography 2TB hard drive at import.  After many hours of following instructions I finally got the work flow down. Recently I have noticed that Lightroom is not picking up any of those photos, with my Hard Drive plugged in and shows the dreaded ? . Also noticed that I now have a second PHOTOGRAPHY 2tB I . Which is showing some recently scanned pics, which Lightroom recognises.

However, when I go into the develop mode it does not show me that the photos are missing, and allows me to develop. Also the photos in my Collections are all there with out the dreaded ? .

i have tried to go to find missing photos, and the message I get is already exists, merge? Have done that and nothing changes. Restarted, done can think of. Desperate for some in sight? Thanks


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 17, 2015)

No worries, Rob....pleased to help.


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