# External HD going - Copied all to new HD



## bigbob (Dec 20, 2012)

MY 2 YEAR OLD HD is acting up. I was told to buy a new external HD and transfer everything to it. (took 3 hrs.)  On my new external HD I have all my pix and my catalog. Now LR can't find pix or catalog. Bob


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## Replytoken (Dec 20, 2012)

One way to resolve this problem, assuming that your file structure for your images on your new drive is identical to your old drive, is to re-label your new drive with your old drive's name. LR should not know the difference between the drives. It just wants a drive with that name and with those files as they were imported into your catalog. The other option is to point LR to the new location within the Library module.

--Ken


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## Tony Jay (Dec 20, 2012)

Replytoken said:


> One way to resolve this problem, assuming that your file structure for your images on your new drive is identical to your old drive, is to re-label your new drive with your old drive's name. LR should not know the difference between the drives. It just wants a drive with that name and with those files as they were imported into your catalog. The other option is to point LR to the new location within the Library module.
> 
> --Ken



Spot on.

Tony Jay


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## bigbob (Dec 22, 2012)

Thanks for the help.  I called Adobe tech support. 3 days later I have everything in My new external HD. The problem I lost all of the collections. Adobe said there was not way to save them. I was not to happy 4yrs of work and I do every thing in collections. bob


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## ukbrown (Dec 22, 2012)

I understood that collections are stored in the catalog, if you follow the advice above and you have successfully transferred all the data from the old to the new drive that it should all just work.


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## Replytoken (Dec 23, 2012)

bigbob said:


> Thanks for the help.  I called Adobe tech support. 3 days later I have everything in My new external HD. The problem I lost all of the collections. Adobe said there was not way to save them. I was not to happy 4yrs of work and I do every thing in collections. bob



What did they recommend that caused you to lose your collections? 

--Ken


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## Victoria Bampton (Dec 23, 2012)

Please tell me they didn't just get you to import everything into a new catalog?  I do sometimes wonder what on earth Adobe's support are thinking.

You said you still had your catalog - if you double click on it, does it all look normal (i.e. with collections) except for question marks everywhere?


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## bigbob (Dec 25, 2012)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Please tell me they didn't just get you to import everything into a new catalog?  I do sometimes wonder what on earth Adobe's support are thinking.
> 
> You said you still had your catalog - if you double click on it, does it all look normal (i.e. with collections) except for question marks everywhere?



I guess I'm not explaining it right. Yes they had me import into a new catalog.I have my old external HD which is still working. I can bring up that catalog everything is still there including the collections. Now I have to HD's  2 catalogs but only the old HD has the COLLECTIONS. I do everything in collections. What would you recommend?  
What I did originally was to drag every thing over to the new HD,Adobe said this was the reason I lost all of my collections.  bob


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## bigbob (Dec 25, 2012)

Ken,
Adobe said by me dragging everything over to the new drive it caused the problem. I told the tech person I still had everything on my old drive. But he had me make a new catalog.  bob


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## Replytoken (Dec 26, 2012)

bigbob said:


> Ken,
> Adobe said by me dragging everything over to the new drive it caused the problem. I told the tech person I still had everything on my old drive. But he had me make a new catalog. bob



Bigbob,

I am sorry to hear that things are not resolved for you. I think that Victoria hit the nail on the head. Adobe support probably recommended the most expedient solution, not necessarily the best solution for you. Moving files from one external hard drive to another should not cause a problem, as I just moved almost 500GB of files from one drive to another in October without any problem. But, it sounds like you still have everything, so I would imagine that given the advice here in the forum, you should be able to have your catalogs, with your collections, operating on your new hard drive. I can offer some key points for consideration, but as I am using a W7-64 system, I am going to let a Mac user give you specifics.



First, do not delete or overwrite any of your files on either drive. This is where people often get into trouble. You can delete things after everything is working as desired.
You LR catalog file(s) contain your collections. If you have your original catalog file(s), then you have your collections.
You can move your catalog to a different drive, along with its associated preview files/folders and preference files, but you need to make sure you move all of the necessary files, and you will need to "point" LR to those new files. LR on my machine is set to open up the last file used, so in my case, I would need to close that (old) file and search for the new catalog in the new location. Once opened, LR on my machine would default to reopening that new file in its new location the next time it is launched.
LR catalogs look for imported images by their path name. If you can name/designate your new drive the same as your old drive (i.e. drive map letters in Windows), and give the new drive an identical folder/file structure, then LR should be able continue as if there was no change.

If you are still interested in trying to resolve this issue so you can use your collections in your old catalogs, I would suggest tackling this in three steps. First, create an identical file/folder structure and path on your new drive for your images. Then, try and move a copy of your old catalog, and its associated files, to your new drive (if so desired). Finally, open up the newly copied catalog, and see if it finds your images correctly. If not, then point it to them. If you have any problems, stop and post immediately. Under no circumstances should you try to re-arrange or re-organize the location or file structure of your images during this process! If you wish to do so, do this in LR after everything is found to be working correctly.

Good luck,

--Ken


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## bigbob (Dec 26, 2012)

Thanks you Ken for taking the time to ans. in such great detail. big bob  Happy Holidays


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## Replytoken (Dec 26, 2012)

bigbob said:


> Thanks you Ken for taking the time to ans. in such great detail. big bob Happy Holidays



You are quite welcome.  Many memebers have helped me over the years as I have migrated to a new machine and OS, and have upgraded my hardware, so it is the least that I can do.  I find mucking around in LR a bit daunting since I do not normally do these types of things, but I usually spend a bit of time researching before beginning, and I always make sure to not delete anything until I know that the changes were successful.  Most importantly, I always stop immediately if things have not gone according to plan.  There a a number of experienced members who usually respond to posts right away, so help is usually at hand in a short time if you post a description of your problem.  I am sure that you will be up and running very soon.  Take care through the holidays!

Good luck,

--Ken


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