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ToxicImagery
Participant
April 11, 2025
Question

Lightroom 4 help ‘if you Please..?

  • April 11, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 192 views

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...

    2 replies

    Rob_Cullen
    Community Expert
    Rob_CullenCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 11, 2025

    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)

     

    Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .
    kglad
    Community Expert
    kgladCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 11, 2025

    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">
    T
    ToxicImageryAuthor
    Participant
    April 11, 2025

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

    kglad
    Community Expert
    kgladCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 11, 2025

    is your lr 4 activated?

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