Skip to main content
Participant
February 3, 2023
Question

Restoring lost catalogs from Harddisk restore (No backups)

  • February 3, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 323 views

I made the critical error of accidently permanently deleting my Catalog files while cleaning out my harddisk, and I don't believe I had any backups saved. (Hard lesson learnt).

 

I used TestDisk and Desk Drill to restore some files from the drive and have a number of files to work with in trying to restore my catalogs. 

 

Unfortunately, most online tutorials show restores from a backup point (which I don't believe I have), so I'm at my end of knowledge to get these back. I've attached a photo of the 2 folders of restored files (from each program) and am unsure where to go from here in getting my Catalog's back. 

 

Most of the original photos were moved to an external harddrive, but at least the catalog's with all the edits were still there in Lightroom, which I'm trying to get back.

 

Any help would be massively appreciated. 

 

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

dj_paige
Legend
February 3, 2023

Double-click on a catalog file to open it. What happens?

Participant
February 3, 2023

Says it's a corrupt file, attempts to repair and then fails with 'assertion fail!' notification.


dj_paige
Legend
February 3, 2023

Then the recovery software failed to create a usable recovered file.