# Renaming my harddisk and maintaining link to LR catalog?



## Palle Jensen (Sep 20, 2019)

Its kind of goofy question, but I have not found anyplace in LR settings where I can change this parameter.
Why do I ask? Well because I am shuffling my storage around and in this I want to rename the drives . like before it was: '2R4_Data'... now I would prefer: 'Photos'
there is no problem in the renaming of the drive, but all my previews are shown with a ! indicating that original to be linked to is not found. I have about 40K photos so its a bit to re-arrange.
is there a 'oneshot' way to fix it?

fix will be appreciated

Palle


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## clee01l (Sep 20, 2019)

In your folder panel there is a Volume listing   If  Volume '2R4_Data'. Is renamed "Photos" the folders that were pathed in LR as being on '2R4_Data'  are now marked as missing.  Relinking the top most folder to "Photos" will put LR back on the right track.


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## Palle Jensen (Sep 20, 2019)

Hmm, not exactly working here... I did your suggestion and adjusted first folder, but now I have two volumes, one smaller one with question mark on 'top folder' and question mark on the 9 'subfolders. like attached screenshot. the folder below is the still active and alive one. If I outside LR change the disk take, these two parts will swap places.
I am a bit frustrated, also because in the live part I get a number of options when rightclicking, whereas no option are offered when right clicking on the 'dead' one.
where did I go off the track?


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 21, 2019)

Lightroom sees the renamed drive as '2R4_Data' as well. Did you really rename it before you reconnected that folder?


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## clee01l (Sep 21, 2019)

Palle Jensen said:


> Hmm, not exactly working here... I did your suggestion and adjusted first folder, but now I have two volumes, one smaller one with question mark on 'top folder' and question mark on the 9 'subfolders. like attached screenshot. the folder below is the still active and alive one. If I outside LR change the disk take, these two parts will swap places.
> I am a bit frustrated, also because in the live part I get a number of options when rightclicking, whereas no option are offered when right clicking on the 'dead' one.
> where did I go off the track?


The Volume “2R4_Data” has a gray indicator that means it is not mounted.  You need to right click on any of  the top level folders shown in the Folder panel as missing andd use the option to reconnect in the drop down menu then navigate to the Volume now called “Photos” and match it with the folder of the same name NOW on Photos.   You will have to do this for every top level folder that shows the (?).  When you do I that sub folder will automatically be found.  When the volume “Photos” shows up in the Folder panel it will have a green indicator signifying that it is mounted.


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## Palle Jensen (Sep 21, 2019)

I renamed the drive, as part of major reshuffling of drivenames, I have 2 RAID stations and will get another next week. These are used fora lot of different data. And my photos are all there, somewhat scattered in different folders due to change from Mac Pro to iMac, and forcedropping 'Aperture' in favour of LR.
So renaming on raid will not bother  macOS. but... then I saw that all photos in LR had the '!' and that was not good. so I renamed disk back. and all was ok in LR. Still I was curios about having LR accepting name change of disk, and I put my question here... the outcome was not as expected, and I have refund the 'missing' 110 photos on the drive and imported them into present LR Catalog. no harm done... and... I would really like to have LR accept the proposed disk name, without hassle  , but maybe... not.... I have 30 years of IT experience on windows and macOS, was not prepared for this snag in LR.
P


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 21, 2019)

Update to 8.4.1 if you have not done so. This looks like an issue with 8.4 that has been fixed in 8.4.1.


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## Jim Wilde (Sep 21, 2019)

Palle Jensen said:


> I would really like to have LR accept the proposed disk name, without hassle  , but maybe... not....


Lightroom is NOT a file browser.....it "catalogs" the images based of their file path at the time of import. If you change the file path in any way (such as by renaming the drive that they are on), without telling Lightroom, then "missing files" is the only logical outcome. Similarly if you move, rename or delete images or folders outside of the LR UI (you can do all that inside Lightroom) you will again encounter "missing files". Correction of that disk rename is usually quite simple provided you have taken the elementary precaution of ensuring that you have your image folders nested under one (or a very few) parent folders....if you have done that then you can use the "Find Missing Folder" command on the top level folder, point LR to the new location/name of the folder and all folders and images nested under that parent folder will be "re-linked" in the catalog.


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 21, 2019)

Johan Elzenga said:


> Lightroom sees the renamed drive as '2R4_Data' as well. Did you really rename it before you reconnected that folder?


Correction: I missed a subtle difference. You renamed the disk to ‘R4_Data’ (in your first message you say you want to rename it to ‘Photos’, that is why I was confused), so what you see it entirely logical. ‘2R4_Data’ no longer exists, ‘R4_Data’ appeared in its place and so you’ll have to relink each top folder to this new path.


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## Palle Jensen (Sep 23, 2019)

I also got wiser, sort of. Turns out The hierarchy I use in LR is more or less flat, so I don't have a 'top folder', therefore it will be heck of a job, I guess, for me to create a structure like you mention, but I am pondering it, otherwise I will just have to live forever with the 'odd' diskname.
Anyway I have  discovered a bit more on the workings of LR... so maybe 

P


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