Missing photos after moving to new external drive

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
March 2, 2022
2 replies
3038 views

I recently got a new external drive and moved my photos from the previous external drive to the new drive in Lightroom Classic (not Explorer). The folder structure looks like this:

E:

E:\Original Photos

E:\Original Photos\2021

E:\Original Photos\2022

E:\Original Photos\Elements Photos

The folder called Original Photos contains about 14K individual photos as well as the 3 subfolders I listed. When I opened LR Classic I saw that all of the photos were missing. I have been able to 'find' and reconnect the 3 subfolders, but the 14K individual photos are still 'missing.' When I click on an individual photo to find the missing photo, it is looking at E:\ for the photos, not E:\Original Photos. I've tried using the Find Missing Photos feature but nothing happens (I even let it run overnight). Any advice on how to find those photos without having to find each individual photo?

Windows

This topic has been closed for replies.

C

cecilh

Participant

I have the same problem. I moved my photos from 2 smaller drives to a larger 12TB drive. I used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy the files to the new drive and now after importing to LR Classic, I still do not see all of the photo files. Did you ever find a real solution to your problem?

Sean McCormack

Community Expert

You didn't need to import to Lightroom again, you just needed to update the folder locations. If you have the old catalog, open that, right click on the folders and choose 'Update Folder Location' or 'Find Missing Folder' depending on whether it's connected to the old location or just missing. this is covered within this post.

Sean McCormack. Author of 'Essential Development 3'. Magazine Writer. Former Official Fuji X-Photographer.

dj_paige

Legend

Not sure what you mean by "missing". Can you explain in a lot more detail? Is there an exclamation point icon on the photos? Is there a question mark icon on the folders? Are the photos missing in Lightroom Classic or missing in your operating system or both or neither?

"Find Missing Photos" only searches the catalog itself. It does not search your hard disks.

A

ajfeidler8823Author

Participating Frequently

The photos are on the hard drive and were in the LRC catalog prior to moving them to the new external drive, which was done within LRC. Now the photos are on the new hard drive but in LRC, there are 14K photos with the exclamation mark and "Photo is missing" appears when I mouse over the exclamation mark. So, they are missing in LRC but not on my hard drive.

If I click on the exclamation mark, a window pops up that says:

"DSC00043.JPG" could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?

Previous location: E:\DSC00043.JPG

I can click on Locate and change the location to E:\Original Photos and find the photo. I have done that about 50 times but don't really want to do it 14K times.

Sean McCormack

Community Expert

You can right click on a folder and use Find Missing Folder for the top level folders.

Sean McCormack. Author of 'Essential Development 3'. Magazine Writer. Former Official Fuji X-Photographer.

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