External Hard Drive Failed – Lightroom Can’t Locate My Catalog Anymore

Question

I have successfully used Lightroom classic for. a few year. My catalogue and raw images were save to an ext HD through LR. Last week my hard drive failed. I took it to a shop and they said the motor had gone and copied all the data on to a new External HD. I have brought it home and plugged into my macbook and opened LR. It can't locate the catalog and wants to use an old one, update  or make a new one. I dare not click anything ! I just want my old way of working back where all my images are together, sorted in to years. It says a new catalogue will not be compatible with older versions of LR classic. There is somehting that says catalog in the new hard drive.  Any suggestions on what I should do ?
I do not know the  LR classic version as I can't open it if i dont click one of the catalog options.
I use latest version on Sequoia on macbook pro

dj_paige · Accepted Answer

Use your operating system's search feature to search all folders on all drives for files whose name ends with .LRCAT (these are the catalog files)

Once you find those files, one of those may be the catalog file you were using. Double-click on each catalog to open it in Lightroom Classic until you find the catalog file you want.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.