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Sunny_visionary0730
Known Participant
April 7, 2025
Question

What to do if the backup is corrupt?

  • April 7, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 215 views

Hi everyone,
I really need help and I’m feeling pretty panicked right now.

I recently moved all my files from an external 5TB drive (E:) to a new 8TB internal SSD (C:) that I installed to replace my laptop’s original 1TB drive.

Then I made a huge mistake: I moved the folders containing all my Lightroom catalog files (including the .lrcat files) to the new C: drive as well. After that, everything disappeared.

When I try to most recent different versions of my catalogs:

  • The folder panel is completely empty

  • No thumbnails or previews

  • No “?” icons to reconnect missing files
    It’s like the catalog is totally blank — but the .lrcat files still have size, so they don’t seem totally corrupted.

And now it’s worse: When I try to open the most recent catalog (which I think is a backup), Lightroom (v13.3.1 — I believe the latest) won’t open it at all. It says the catalog is corrupted and needs to be repaired. But after the repair process runs, the file still won’t open — it just fails silently.

 

So either the newest catalog is empty or it’s corrupt, and the backups aren’t working either. I’ve spent years building this catalog and I’m desperate not to lose it.

If anyone has run into this before or has any suggestions, I’d be incredibly grateful.

Thank you so much in advance.

1 reply

dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
April 7, 2025

Unzip the backup of your LrC catalog to a different drive (not the drive where you got the corrupt message) and try opening it from there. If that doesn't work and, and can't be repaired, you are out of luck.

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Sunny_visionary0730Author
Known Participant
April 7, 2025

I found one backup that I didnt see before and got me back until 9/2024. which is better than everything i ve done so far.

there is a backup that is more recent but when it extracts there is no lrcat. there is just a lrcat-data folder. which is useless right? 

There is no LRCAT. Can I just move whats inside to replace that in another folder that has these same files... maybe.. what do you think?

 







dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
April 7, 2025

If there is no .LRCAT, you can do all the moving of files you want, but it won't help a bit.

 

I found one backup that I didnt see before

 

I did mention in your other thread, several times, that you want to use your operating system's search feature to search ALL folder on ALL disks for files whose name ends with .LRCAT; it sounds like you did visual searching, which is not what I wanted you to do. You should do the search the way I suggested.

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