orignal photo drive lost, back up external drive not recognised

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
February 17, 2025
3 replies
189 views

Hi all i am having a mare of a day my orignal external drive with my photos on has broke and the my back up photo external drive has just stopped working and now not recognised by my iMac. All my photo's are shoot raw.

I always back up my LrC lightroom so have an up to date back up can I still work on them, export them etc.

dj_paige

Legend

What do you mean by "not recognized"? Does it not show in Mac Finder? Does it not show in LrC? Something else?

dj_paige

Legend

Hi all i am having a mare of a day my orignal external drive with my photos on has broke and the my back up photo external drive has just stopped working and now not recognised by my iMac. All my photo's are shoot raw.

I always back up my LrC lightroom so have an up to date back up can I still work on them, export them etc.

By @paulaje

I was hoping you could explain this more, because I don't understand what the problem is. If, as your last sentence says, you can still work on the photos and export them, what is the problem?

paulajeAuthor

Participant

I save my photo's to an external drive and also back then up to an external drive. Both external drives have stopped working. When in LrC my photos are grey out with this message (could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?).

I always back up LrC so I was wanting to know if i will still be able to work on them if i use a back up or have i lost all my photos for good

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

"Backing up Lightroom" means backing up the catalog, not the photos. If you have lost the photos and their backup, then a catalog backup will not be of any use. Your only chance would be some recovery service for the external drive(s).

-- Johan W. Elzenga

kglad

Community Expert

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.

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