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ToxicImagery
Participant
Apr 11, 2025 7:25 PM UTC
Question

Lightroom 4 help ‘if you Please..?

Hello All... (Thank You in advance!)

16+ years ago I had an external hard drive fail on me. As a result I lost close to to 19,000 photographs, videos, etc...

A family member recently passed and I thought I'd try to recover the drive that I was unsuccessful with back when it failed, for use in a memorial slideshow.    I found some software that I highly recommended. (ReCuva Pro).

 Subsequently the software although only some, recovered some of my photographs (3,000+).  However it did recover 213 Zipped Lightroom 4 Preview catolog files.  

I dug out my original Lightroom 4 disc and installed it successfully on my current system...  

 

Is there ANY possible way of recovering these files in my current installation of Lightroom 4..???

 

i would Truly Appreciate Any an All help...

 

 Thank You in Advance...

    5 replies

    Rob_Cullen
    Community Expert
    Rob_CullenCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    Apr 11, 2025 10:22 PM UTC

    Agreeing with @Per Berntsen   Yep, Lightroom v4  only needs the Serial Number to run indefinitely (I still have v4.7 on an old laptop 🙂 )

    Backup catalogs won't be any use either (for preview extraction) unless there were accompanying backups of the Preview folder.

    I believe the best you will get is simply the 3,000+ recovered photos- viewed in any way (File explorer, Bridge, etc)

     

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    Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.6, Photoshop 27.8, ACR 18.7, Lightroom 9.4, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.3 .
    kglad
    Community Expert
    kgladCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    Apr 11, 2025 7:41 PM UTC

    you have 30 days to use your lr 4.  otherwise,

     

    in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

    p.s. i don't think the adobe website, and forums in particular, are easy to navigate, so don't spend a lot of time searching that forum list. do your best and we'll move the post (like this one has already been moved) if it helps you get responses.



    <"moved from using the community">
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    ToxicImageryAuthor
    Participant
    Apr 11, 2025 7:45 PM UTC

    I'm not sure what you mean by, I have 30 days to use my lr 4..?

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    kglad
    Community Expert
    kgladCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    Apr 11, 2025 7:49 PM UTC

    is your lr 4 activated?

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