All image connections gone after file restructuring

[Electric_hand5681]

My HDD stopped working the other day (suddenly appeared as "uncategorized" in the drive manager and disappeared from the Win Explorer). I managed to rescue the files, however, they are saved in an arbitrary order in many (arbitrary) subfolders now. I managed to open the latest *.lrcat file, however all connections are gone as the file paths have changed.

What I tried:

Right-click on the top level folder in LRC to relocate the pictures, selecting the overarching "images-folder" in which all the rescued image files are stored.

Search for the raw file in Win Explorer and relocate a single image/ update the file path.

None did work.

Is there any way to re-connect the raw files to the LRC catalogue without re-building the originial folder structure (basically impossible looking at the amount of pictures/ folders)?

Thank you!

[dj_paige]

I managed to rescue the files, however, they are saved in an arbitrary order in many (arbitrary) subfolders now. I managed to open the latest *.lrcat file, however all connections are gone as the file paths have changed.

Arbitrary (random) subfolders? This is extremely difficult to recover from, you would need to re-connect the photos one-by-one. Don't you have backups of your photos in their original folders you could use?

[Electric_hand5681]

Thank you for your reply. If I would have such a backup, I would use this for sure. The recovery tool created the folders. They seem to be in chronological order, but it is not the same folder structure as before. One-by-one reconnection has not worked as mentioned. Is there any other way to recover the edits? The edits are what matters to me, I can re-import the pictures and LRC will sort them, but then my edits are gone.

[dj_paige]

Is there any other way to recover the edits?

The edits are still in your catalog file. So no need to recover them. But also no way to use them if the photos are not connected. If reconnecting is not feasible because of the sheer number of files, I think you are out of luck.

Perhaps you might want to select a small number of very important photos and re-connect those 1-by-1, the rest are not going to be recovered because there are too many, this is better than nothing.

[Electric_hand5681]

Thank you. Yes, that is what I thought, too, but when I tried reconnecting a single file, it did not work either unfortunately. Not sure why, though. It should not be a problem if the file path has changed, right? If I get this to work - is there a way to have two LRC catalogs in parallel? One for browsing and identifying the important photos for reconnecting and then the old one with the edits stored? Can I just simply create a new, blank catalog and keep the old one with the edits? I am a bit scared of importing the pictures as I do not want to overwrite anything. Thank you!

[dj_paige]

I tried reconnecting a single file, it did not work either unfortunately.

What exact steps did you try? What did happen? Was there an error message? If so, please tell us the complete unedited word-for-word message.

If I get this to work - is there a way to have two LRC catalogs in parallel? One for browsing and identifying the important photos for reconnecting and then the old one with the edits stored?

I can't see any usefulness in doing this. The only way to make this useful is if the files were properly connected in the old catalog.

Can I just simply create a new, blank catalog and keep the old one with the edits? I am a bit scared of importing the pictures as I do not want to overwrite anything.

Sure you can do that, there's no harm, but I don't see any benefit either. The only benefit I can see, as we discussed, is if the files in the old catalog are reconnected.

[Electric_hand5681]

Thank you!

• Reconnecting a single file: Click on the little exclamation mark on the right top corner of the preview (or where the preview should be) > Search > Selection of the file. No error message. The image is displayed for a millisec before it vanishes again.
• Parallel catalogues: It is almost impossible to screen the images via the Win Explorer as they are not really sorted and I would need to open them one by one (no preview of *.cr3 files available). By importing them into LRC, I can quickly screen them for the really important ones I have made edits to. I can search for and  reconnect these ones in the old catalog, which contains the edits. If the files were properly connected in the old catalog, I would not need another, parallel catalog. Is there a better way to do it? Any ideas highly appreciated.

Thank you!

[dj_paige]

Reconnecting a single file: Your description of "it vanishes" is what is supposed to happen. The image is now shown in a different folder in LrC, whatever folder has the actual photo file. It won't be shown any more in the folder where it used to be before you reconnected it.

I see what you mean about parallel catalogs, might work.

[Rob_Cullen]

A comment on Parallel catalogues:

It might be easier to use Adobe Bridge that will display all images (CR#, NEF, DNG, etc)

You can have Bridge open in a window with Lr-Classic also open, but you cannot have two LrC catalogs open at once.

[Electric_hand5681]

Thank you, that is a great hint!