P: Working with multiple external drives (PC, WIn10)

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/lightroom-loses-photo-location-after-drive-letter-change---windo.html

Known Participant

Oops .. try this one:

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/lightroom-loses-photo-location-after-drive-letter-change---windo.html

Known Participant

BTW ... here's the Adobe Help page that describes how to change (assign) static drive letters to removable storage drives:

Known Participant

Thank you for confirming that Todd. I'm sure it's because of the way Windows manages hard disks (vie drive letters) vs Mac UNIX which uses volume names. Perhaps Adobe could find a way for users to assign an Alias to the drive entry.?

All's good now that I know it's "normal" and I've just added stickers with letters on my external drives as well as create a document with a list of what's what. I'm glad that I have a very organized file and naming system as my file naming indicates where it's stored. Good file management/naming habits really pay off as years go by.

After searching online I see this topic repeated quite often. It would be great if Adobe could come up with some clever solution/workaround that would resolve the issue.

Cheers 🙂 - Russell

Legend

I can confirm the behavior you are seeing when the external drives are disconnected. It's apparently by design with the LrC catalog only recording the assigned drive letter and not the drive name. I'm going to change this post to an Idea requesting that the LrC catalog file on Windows systems also record the drive name. I believe that is how it currently works on Mac systems, but don't have one to test.

Legend

"Yes, that might be causing it as well. I'm just not keen on creating individual drive letters for all my external drives to only make LrC happy."

On a Windows system that's the only way you can assign a name to a drive. If you start with M: that gives you 14 unique drives and the ability to plug in up to 9 non-named external drives without interfering with the named drives. That's why I asked, "How many external USB drives and/or other devices are you using?"

Known Participant

I have about 9-10 main drives divided by personal, teaching, main clients (one drive for each) and a drive with misc. small clients. Many of them can stay with the same drive letter and their own catalog, but if I combine multiple drive in the same catalog I'll be sure to assign unique drive letters. I haven't gone down the rabbit hole too far yet so I might still change my mind do as you're suggesting to create one master catalog. Tnx 🙂

Legend

"I wondered if drive name retention only worked with USB drives, so I attached a USB drive with some photos and imported them. That drive did retain its name (and letter) when removed and the original "Personal-1" SATA drive suddenly displayed its full name and letter (hmm, ...interesting). But as soon as I closed and re-opened LR everything was back to displaying drive letters only."

I tried this on my Windows 10 system and after the LrC was closed and reopened the name (MyBook 2TB Win 10 Backup) and drive letter (S:) are both visible as in my original screenshot. What may be happening is that you are plugging in a device that is taking the drive letter H: assigned to your client drive. To prevent this from happening assign drive letters near the end of the alphabet perhaps starting with M:. How many external USB drives and/or other devices are you using?

Known Participant

I think that's because you're using only one external drive with that one LR catalog. I'm going to try making one catalog for each of my external client drives, which are already organized that way, and see how LR behaves. Considering the volume of images I'm importing it might be preferable to have a LR catalog for each and LR might be happier too. Just trying to start with something that will work going forward (A stitch in time ..).

R 🙂

Legend

It's working on my WIndows 10 system using LrC 11.1. The S: drive in the below screenshot has been removed, but stll shows the drive letter and name. How did you name the drives?

Known Participant

Thank you Todd 🙂

I use numerous 4 and 8TB SATA drives in a hot-swappable mobile HD rack and the drive I tested with is named "Personal-1". After removing it the only thing listed in Folders was "H", which was the drive letter assigned to that drive.

I wondered if drive name retention only worked with USB drives, so I attached a USB drive with some photos and imported them. That drive did retain its name (and letter) when removed and the original "Personal-1" SATA drive suddenly displayed its full name and letter (hmm, ...interesting). But as soon as I closed and re-opened LR everything was back to displaying drive letters only.

To make matters worse, when I swapped out the "Personal-1" drive for one named "Clients-1" it took the same latter "H" that was free'd up when the first drive was removed, and LR then proceeded to mix the imported folders of images into the same "Personal-1" SATA drive folder structure. It did not recognize that it's not the same removable storage.

Is there a preference or option somewhere that I'm missing ... ?

I'm back to thinking that creating drive root folders named as per the drive name and letter might be a solution.

R

Known Participant

Creating a root level folder on each external SATA drive drive named per the drive name and letter is working for what I need. I then move the drive contents to that one folder before importing images. When I load LR the top-most Parent folder's name displays the info I need to connect the appropriate drive and the drive letter it needs to be if it's not correct by default.

R