# New hard Disc



## Pieter30 (Jan 19, 2019)

I didn't succeed in finding any threads regarding my problem, although I can't believe I'll be the first person to run into this.
My older hard disc has run out of space. The photos's on this disc are catalogued in Lightroom CC. I have e bigger disc now, that my photo's, including the Lightroom xmp files have been copied to.
My concern that I will loose the location information and the keyword tags.
Can you please help me to the easiest solution?
a) use the new disc in my catalogue. Then how do I proceed?
b) keep the old disc with its catalogue up to the last file on it and add the new disc for cataloguing for the new files?
c) any better way.

Thanks very much in advance for your help.
Pieter30


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## Victoria Bampton (Jan 19, 2019)

Hi Pieter, welcome to the forum!

Let's start with a really important detail... you've put your Lightroom version as CC, but it sounds more like you're using Lightroom Classic. Can you please to go Help menu > System Info and get us the exact version number so we can give you the best instructions please?


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## Pieter30 (Jan 19, 2019)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Hi Pieter, welcome to the forum!
> 
> Let's start with a really important detail... you've put your Lightroom version as CC, but it sounds more like you're using Lightroom Classic. Can you please to go Help menu > System Info and get us the exact version number so we can give you the best instructions please?


Lightroom Classic version 8.1


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## Califdan (Jan 19, 2019)

A few more questions

1) when you open LR 8.1,  in the Folders panel, do you see your Old disk, your New Disk or both?

2) Do the folder names shown have "?" marks on them (answer for each drive if both present)

3) Did you change the folder structure (folder names or organization) when you copied/moved the images from the old disk to the new disk?

4)  Do all the image folders have a common parent folder and  if so what is its name (will make replying easier)

With these answers, we'll get you back on track but whatever you do, DO NOT RE-IMPORT IMAGES THAT ARE ALREADY KNOWN TO LIGHTROOM


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## Pieter30 (Jan 19, 2019)

Answers:
1) I can see two folders from two separate disks, both old. The new disk does not show, because I have not yet imported any files from it. Fyi: the new disk contains copies of all my photo's with the xmp-files, including the ones on the old disk.

2) The two (old) files have no ?-marks.

3) No. Both folder structures are the same.

4) On one old disk (which is really not relevant) the folders have no common parent folder. On the relevant disk the folders have a common parent folder: "Foto's Pieter".


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## Pieter30 (Jan 19, 2019)

Califdan said:


> A few more questions
> 
> 1) when you open LR 8.1,  in the Folders panel, do you see your Old disk, your New Disk or both?
> 
> ...



My apologies, Califdan.
I hadn't seen that the questios came from you.


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## Califdan (Jan 20, 2019)

1) As you said that in the relevant images folder there is a common master folder (which is a darn good practice for just this reason),  go into Windows File Manager or Mac Finder and rename that top images folder on the old disk.  Maybe put an "X" at the beginning of the folder name.


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## Califdan (Jan 20, 2019)

Sorry, hit enter accidentally.....


1) Open LR 8.1.  If you can see the "Foto's Pieter " folder in the folders panel (in the Old Disk), close LR and go on to the next step.   If you can't see it,  right click on one of the folder you can see and select "Show Parent" folder.  Repeat up the chain till you can see the  "Foto's Pieter " folder.   Then Close LR

2) Go into Windows File Manager or Mac Finder and rename  folder "Foto's Pieter " to something else such as  "X-Foto's Pieter ".

3)  Open LR.  

4)  Folder "Foto's Pieter " in the folders panel will now have a "?" on it (because you renamed it outside of LR)

5)  Right click on it and select "Find Missing Folder"

6)  In the pop up box,  navigate to "Foto's Pieter " on the new drive and click on it.  Then click the "Select Folder" button

Now all the folders should lose their "?" mark and the catalog will be using the images on the New rather than Old drive.

Dan


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## Pieter30 (Jan 20, 2019)

Thanks very much, Dan.

Actually, at first I didn't understand how renaming the folder in WindowsFile Manager was going to solve my problem. But then I realized that would be the first part of the solution.
Now I also understand that after a disk-crash you can go to the back-up disk and still have the Lightroom information, as long as I have the back-up, including the xmp-files. Is my understanding correct?

Kind regards,
Pieter


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Jan 20, 2019)

Lightroom informations are store in the catalog (a .lrcat file). If you have a backup of this catalog, you will retrieve all LR informations.
XMP files are optional. They contains some LR informations but not all (virtual copie and collections are missing, for exemple). So recovering from the xmp files wont be a full recovery as is a recovery from a catalog backup. It is also less easy since it requires LR to read all the xmp files and register informations in the catalog accordingly, whereas recovery from a catalog backup catalog only requires to open the catalog files.
For that reason, it  is strongly recommanded to make a backup of your catalog on a regular basis.


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## Pieter30 (Jan 21, 2019)

Thanks very much for this information.
Is the backup of the .Ircat file made automatically and periodically when closing Lightroom?
I have found these files. Do I only need to keep the last one made? Could I delete the older files?

Kind regards,
Pieter


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Jan 21, 2019)

> Is the backup of the .Ircat file made automatically and periodically when closing Lightroom?


Yes, if you ask LR to do so.  
From the "Edit" menu, open the Catalog Parameters dialog box. In the "General" tab, there is a drop down list that let you select if and when LR should do a backup of the catalog. You will define the backup location in the dialog box shown by LR before doing the backup. If you can, I strongly suggest to set the location to an other drive than the catalog itself. If you have only one drive, backup the backups (!) to an other media on a regular basis (as well as all your other documents, photos, etc.,  and even the catalog itself).


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## Pieter30 (Jan 21, 2019)

Pieter30 said:


> Thanks very much for this information.
> Is the backup of the .Ircat file made automatically and periodically when closing Lightroom?
> I have found these files. Do I only need to keep the last one made? Could I delete the older files?
> 
> ...


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## Pieter30 (Jan 21, 2019)

Thanks very much, Philippe.
It seems that every answer leads to new questions.
It is certainly good advice to have my backup at a different disk. I have located the backups, the Ircat-files. I will change the settings for these backups to a different disk.
My new question is: where is the (original?) catalogue stored and how can I identify this catalogue?


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Jan 21, 2019)

The name and location of your catalog is the first  information displayed in the same "General" tab of the Catalog Preferences.


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## Pieter30 (Jan 21, 2019)

Thanks Philippe.
There are a lot of original catalogs in this file. Can I delete the older ones, both fot he Original and the backup catalogs?


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Jan 21, 2019)

Could you first attach a screenshot of the folder containing your catalog, as well as a screenshot of the "General" tab of the Catatalog Preferences? I could check and tell you what can be deleted safely.


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## Pieter30 (Jan 22, 2019)

Philippe Coudé du Foresto said:


> Could you first attach a screenshot of the folder containing your catalog, as well as a screenshot of the "General" tab of the Catatalog Preferences? I could check and tell you what can be deleted safely.


Dear Philippe,
I have appended a number of screenshpts.


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Jan 22, 2019)

There is effectively some mess... 
On drive C, you have a catalog titled "Lightroom 201806-09" (but I can't see it's date).  You also have a lot of backups (of a catalog titled "qqq") created up to yesterday at 13:41
OTOH, on drive E, you also have 2 backups (of a catalog titled "qqq") created yesterday at 14:14 and 16:58

This is a bit confusing.
I first need to determine for sure what's the name and where is your current catalog. Could you send a screenshot of the "Heneral" tab of the Catalog Preferences"? This will show what the current catalog is.


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## Pieter30 (Jan 23, 2019)

This is a screenshot of the General, where, as I understand it, the original catalog is placed.
After earlier advice, I placed the backup catalog in a diffirent hard disk: E.


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Jan 23, 2019)

So, your catalog is titled ""qqq", but unfortunately the full path is too long and doesn't fit in the box...
I've send you a private message.


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## Califdan (Jan 23, 2019)

It does look like you have your catalog in the Previews folder for some reason (I'm just seeing the start of the word "previews").  If so, that's something you should remedy.


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## Pieter30 (Jan 26, 2019)

Califdan said:


> It does look like you have your catalog in the Previews folder for some reason (I'm just seeing the start of the word "previews").  If so, that's something you should remedy.


Dear Dan,
Some time in the past when closing Lightroom I got a message after which I changed the nsme of the catalog. The full path should be visable in the first attachment.
On advice from Philippe I made a backup of the catalog, which path should be clear from the second attachment.
Could you please tell me the appropriate place for the original catalog, so Lightroom can find it in case I have to doenload Lightroom, for example in case my computer breaks down? I suppose it doesn't matter where I put the backup, as long as it is on a different disk?
Furthermore, do I need to keep each backup of the priginal file, or only the last one? 
Kind regards,
Pieter


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Jan 26, 2019)

The appropriate place for the catalog is up to you. However, it's not a good idea to have it inside inside a floder tree for other purposes like in your case. The "Pictures" location might be a good place. 

For the catalog backup, you can also put them wherever you want, as long as they are on an other drive. The number of latest backup to keep is up to you and depend how often you do a backup. you have to think "if my internal drive fails now, wil I be able to recover my work ?" . An other consideration is in case of a catalog corruption (very unlikely, but not impossible), how far in time must I be able to go back.


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## Califdan (Jan 26, 2019)

Pieter30 said:


> Dear Dan,
> Some time in the past when closing Lightroom I got a message after which I changed the nsme of the catalog. The full path should be visable in the first attachment.
> On advice from Philippe I made a backup of the catalog, which path should be clear from the second attachment.
> Could you please tell me the appropriate place for the original catalog, so Lightroom can find it in case I have to doenload Lightroom, for example in case my computer breaks down? I suppose it doesn't matter where I put the backup, as long as it is on a different disk?
> ...



According to your 2nd screen shot, the catalog is  at  E:\LR Catalogue backups\2019-01-21 1658 with a catalog name of qqq.lrcat.  I presume the E: drive is an external hard drive which is fine.

The catalog can be anywhere you wish.  By default it is on your internal drive  C:\users\<your name>\pictures\lightroom\.    If you would like your catalog to remain on your "E:" drive,  I  would put it in a folder  called:   E:\Photography\Lightroom\Cagtalogs\qqq\  and in that folder would be the qqq.lrcat file, the qqq previews.lrdata folder,  the qqq Smart Previews .lrdata folder, and any other files or folders starting with "qqq".   if you do move these files and folders, the first time you open LR, double click on the "qqq.lrcat" file to open LR (rather than using a desktop icon).  This will force LR to open the newly moved catalog.  Once in LR, go to the General Tab of the Preferences dialog and select  this specific catalog file in the "When starting up us this catalog" field

By default the backups taken when you exit LR go to a folder called "backups" in the same folder as the catalog.  After moving the catalog this may still be pointing to the old location.  After moving the catalog, the first time you get the backup dialog box you should point the backup to a drive other than the one the catalog is on.  I don't know what other drives you have but if you have a drive you use for backups that would be a good spot (maybe in a folder called "LR Backups"), or you could put them on your internal drive  (perhaps C:\users\<your name>\pictures\lightroom\LR Backups\)

Dan


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## Pieter30 (Jan 19, 2019)

I didn't succeed in finding any threads regarding my problem, although I can't believe I'll be the first person to run into this.
My older hard disc has run out of space. The photos's on this disc are catalogued in Lightroom CC. I have e bigger disc now, that my photo's, including the Lightroom xmp files have been copied to.
My concern that I will loose the location information and the keyword tags.
Can you please help me to the easiest solution?
a) use the new disc in my catalogue. Then how do I proceed?
b) keep the old disc with its catalogue up to the last file on it and add the new disc for cataloguing for the new files?
c) any better way.

Thanks very much in advance for your help.
Pieter30


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## Pieter30 (Jan 31, 2019)

Dear Dan,

My apologies for not answering you sooner.
The catalog is now placed in:   C:\users\<your name>\pictures\lightroom\ (in Dutch language).
The backup catalog is placed in:   E:Seagate Backup Plus Ddrive\LR catalogue backups.

This shpuld be fine, as I understand it. Is that correct?

Thanks very much for clearing this up.

Kind regards,
Pieter


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## Califdan (Jan 31, 2019)

Perfect.


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