Moving all RAWs and .Lightroom Cat to a new HD but need to continue working on it

Raymond Lin

Raymond Lin

Raymond Lin

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The External WD drive that my photos RAWs are in has locked up (padlock on the front is lit), the drive can be read, but not written to. I can't fix it at the moment and need to continue working on the photos so I have bought a new Iomega 1.5TB drive. I am going to copy everything across, including the Lightroom Catalogue.

Now, once I have done that, disconnected the WD drive leaving noly the Iomega drive plugged in, how does LR find itself to the Catalogue stored in the Iomega drive and the RAW files?

Can that be done easily?
 
It should work, as you should be able to import the catalog. But the only problem you might have is that it cant find the photo as they used to be on say x: and are now on y:, but that is easily fixed by just right clicking and selecting find folder. Once you do that it should just load the folder as normal and keep all the settings etc.

There might be an easier way, but thats how i would do it.
 
Just change the drive letter of your new external to be the same as the old drive, open the catalog and all should just work fine. I've just done this myself albeit with internal drives. Drive letters can be changed in disk management (right click My Computer > Manage).
 
Rojin said:
Just change the drive letter of your new external to be the same as the old drive, open the catalog and all should just work fine. I've just done this myself albeit with internal drives. Drive letters can be changed in disk management (right click My Computer > Manage).
Click to expand...

He is using an iMac.

As for that it will either work it out for itself or you will have to point it at the new HD, it will search through to find everything and you will be able to start where you left off.
 
Well, backing up commencing. 2 hours to go.

I already have the RAW files on another drive, what scares me the most is not having the LR CAT file !!!! ALL my work, GONE, if i loses that.
 
I know its a case of closing the barn door once the horse has bolted, but when it asks you (weekly? monthly) if you want to back up the catalogue you do point it to another drive... don`t you? Saving it to the same drive is kind of like keeping the spare set of keys to the safe in the safe.
 
When you have copied the RAW files and the .lrcat file to the new hard drive, open the catalogue .lrcat file. In Lightroom's library, it may have a questionmark next to each of the folders. Select the root folder and right click on it and select "Find Missing Folder", find the folder's new location and Lightroom will add them back into the library.
 
Concorde Rules said:
He is using an iMac.

As for that it will either work it out for itself or you will have to point it at the new HD, it will search through to find everything and you will be able to start where you left off.
Click to expand...

Ah! Probably have to do it manually as said then. How does LR store the catalog on a MAC? On the PC it's in a folder that can be backed up easily enough if needed.
 
Well Raymond has it all on the WD drive as a backup I guess. So pretty unlikely to lose anything. Isn't the padlock on the WD drive set by the Smartware software? I can foresee another lmgtfy link! In my defence I'm on my phone browsing!
 
Rojin said:
Well Raymond has it all on the WD drive as a backup I guess. So pretty unlikely to lose anything. Isn't the padlock on the WD drive set by the Smartware software? I can foresee another lmgtfy link! In my defence I'm on my phone browsing!
Click to expand...

There's a back up on another 500g drive that's not plugged in.

Anyway, I tried the smartware too, no luck. Once I got the iomega running I'll try formatting the mybook.
 
ok...just found out that the locked WD drive has somehow deleted/lost 800 Raws from one of my weddings that i haven't delivered yet !

Me thank my lucky stars for having another copy on another External HD............
 
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