This is a complete disaster [Issues with catalog on EHD connected via docking station]

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
May 18, 2024
3 replies
366 views

I am an amateur photographer and subscriber to the Adobe Photography plan.
I usually organize and develop my photos on my desktop computer.
I am also in a photography association and a couple of times a week I meet with other members to look at our photos and exchange all kinds of knowledge. For these meetings I use a laptop.
Since I didn't want to move my photos from one place to another, I came up with a great (disastrous) idea. I bought a USB docking station with a slot for an M.2 disk. It is an Orico docking station 10 in1. I connected a Crucial P3 Plus 4TB drive to it. I put the last five years of photos on this disk along with the Lightroom Classic catalog. The hub connects to the computers via a 10Gbps USB-C port. I have assigned the letter T to the Crucial drive on both computers. My idea was that anything I do to the photos in the desktop would be available in the laptop because I was using the same catalog.
On the desktop, the difference in speed between having the catalog on an internal disk or on the external SSD is very bearable and I work without problems. But when I connect the docking station to my laptop and launch Lightroom Classic with the catalog on the Crucial disk, I usually get a message that the catalog is corrupt and attempts to restore it always fail. Multiple disk errors also occur and one of the times I lost an entire folder of photos.
It has also happened to me that some photos that I was able to recover from my backup disks now I can develop them on the desktop but not enhance (enhance = Noise reduction or Super resolution) them and I cannot jump to Photoshop directly from Lightroom. "Edit in Photoshop 2024" doesn´t works.

Any idea of what is happening?

Windows

This topic has been closed for replies.

L

Lumigraphics

Legend

I'm on Spiceworks (IT professionals forum) and see constant reports of problems with docking stations and Windows PCs. I haven't had any issues on Mac but for you, maybe use a different or no dock.

D Fosse

Community Expert

We've had quite a few posts about docking stations, with all kinds of problems.

I'd say get rid of it ASAP. It sounds like you're running a very real risk of file corruption. Just use the disk as a normal external disk.

The normal caveats for externel drives still apply. They get kicked around a lot, and loose cables/connectors can still cause file corruption. When data transfer is in progress, don't touch it.

dj_paige

Legend

But when I connect the docking station to my laptop and launch Lightroom Classic with the catalog on the Crucial disk, I usually get a message that the catalog is corrupt and attempts to restore it always fail. Multiple disk errors also occur and one of the times I lost an entire folder of photos.

Hardware malfunction on the docking station or more likely the connection from the docking station to the laptop. Try a different USB port, try a different cable.

It has also happened to me that some photos that I was able to recover from my backup disks now I can develop them on the desktop but not enhance (enhance = Noise reduction or Super resolution) them and I cannot jump to Photoshop directly from Lightroom. "Edit in Photoshop 2024" doesn´t works.

This is an entirely different problem, and requires a lot more explanation. Are the photos you are trying to work with raw or JPG? What steps did you follow to put the backups on the backup disk? Please describe step-by-step, leaving nothing out. What steps did you follow to restore them? Please describe step-by-step, leaving nothing out.

VigalpoAuthor

Known Participant

Hardware malfunction on the docking station or more likely the connection from the docking station to the laptop. Try a different USB port, try a different cable.

I have very little choices because my Asus laptop only has two Thunderbolt4 C ports. I tried both. Also tried different cables. One of them is what I use to connect the docking station to the desktop where I have not problems.

This is an entirely different problem, and requires a lot more explanation...

I will try. I only work with raw files. As my camera is a Nikon (another wrong decision) are NEF files. I import from the camera card almost always in the desktop. All my imported raw files are in subfolders of a master folder called "Fotos".

I rename the fotos when importing. Before the problems, I backed up the photos lets sy once in a month. The back up is just manually copying the month folders to two external disk drives (no SSD). Also copy the Lightroom catalog (.lrcat and .lrcat-data files overwriting the existing ones) and the last two catalog backups made by Lightroom. Now, after importing a bunch of photos, adding some stars and keywords and some development I copy the folder inmediatly to one of the back up disk drives. the other is still for the monthly backups. The lost fotos were recovered from this disk.

dj_paige

Legend

When you can't Enhance or DeNoise these raw photos, is there an error message? What is the exact make and model of your GPU?

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