How to change the drive letter that PS Organiser finds photos.

I have imported into the catalogue a USB drive. It imported it from USB E: (PSO 2021)

How do I make it see the files from another letter say G:  

I have read about backing up and moving catalogues. But I dont really understand. Or maybe I do but I dont want to move forward without confirmation.

I have done a backup NOT FULL including pictures, just the tags and other basic data. (too big to backup pictures and thats not want Im trying to do.)

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By @ccm288

Hi @ccm288 ,

In your other post, we have started to explain how Windows and the organizer catalog identify your different external drives. We have to concentrate on the fact that the catalog can find and manage files because it has a link to the location (drive and path) of each media file.

Imagine you have your media files on drive E and you make a strict copy of the media files folders on drive G. The internal serial numbers are also different. You now plug in only G instead of E on your computer. The organizer searches drive E and does not find it. No way to access any file. All your media files are shown as missing or disconnected.

You want to tell the organizer to search each file on G instead on E. In practice, that means editing all links to all files in the catalog to point to drive G plus the folder path of the original drive. The organizer has a tool to find all missing files (it creates a list of all those missing files). Then it has a tool to process each missing file and compare it with other files on your computer. The reconnect missing files process ignores if the folder path of each file has been kept in the new G drive. The process has to be guided by yourself. You guide the search to the right folder on G, and the process is smart enough to find a whole folder when one is found. However, with a big library, you'll have to guide the process for many folders, which will be very long. That's what is available in Elements Organizer.

There is no reconnecting command to tell that only the drive is different, the path being the same. That function is available in Lightroom only. There is no way to 'update' the 'catalog.pseXXdb' database directly for normal users, you would need to master sqlite database management tools and functions. I think that Adobe could provide such a tool for the organizer but with a number of constraints not acceptable for average users.

So, if reconnecting in the organizer is not practical, how could backup and restore process help in moving from letter to letter, that is from drive to drive?

That suggestion in your other post describes a very frequent situation where you have to move to a new computer. As a matter of fact, the process works to move your catalog with your files from a drive to another or even from a master folder to another. It works not only to move, but to copy the catalog with the files elsewhere.

If you don't do a full backup, but a catalog backup without the media files, you are only protected against the loss or corruption of the catalog folder. And that requires that your media files are still on the same location, same drive.

So, you can easily backup your files from E and restore to G. The restore will create a copy of all your files plus a copy of the catalog folder with all links updated to the new G location. You are free to keep the catalog folder there or to move it to the default hidden location on C.

Backup and restore is not the only solution to move your media file tree from E to G.

In the organizer left panel in tree mode, you can move your whole media folder tree from E to G by simple drag and drop. Of course, that will take time. For safety, I would not do that without a backup first. But that works and the links in the catalog will be updated to the new location.

So, you have all of your photos on an external drive, is that correct?

When you imported those photos to your catalog, the drive was assigned the letter E.

You have now changed it in Windows to G.  WHY????