Crashed harddrive

[Tommy Engman]

Im mostley working with lightroom classic and phothoshop. my hard drive has crashed, 5-6 TB. will be sent and possibly be saved. it will take at least a month. i have partial backups (made a year ago) and some on the cloud. my directories are saved.  previously had a major problems with synchronization but now it works very well. Now am unsure how i best can work with my pictures that i photograph while waiting for a possibly repaired hard drive.
Can i f ex open the saved directory and import new images and then revert them to the hopefully saved hard drive when it arrives? or can i use an old backup, and import new images into it. But what happens to all my projects in different directories, as well as all my albums in flickr, that i have saved in classic. What is the best to do in this situation. Uncertain what to do? 

[dj_paige]

First, you have to commit to making regular and automated backups of your work (catalog file and photos). "Regular" meaning once a week or every day, and "automated" meaning that you have a program that performs this task for you (because that is much more reliable than making backups yourself). No excuses. 

New photos: import them into old backup catalog. Later, when repaired disk is available (and assuming repair recovers the current catalog), combine the new photos in the old backup catalog with the repaired catalog so you again have one catalog.

Photos that are not in old backup catalog ... you probably should wait to see how the repair of the disk goes, and if successful, use them in catalog on repaired disk. Otherwise, if not successful, then you have to import them and edit them again.

Your photos on Flickr are not affected.