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richardn81299187
richardn81299187
Known Participant
November 4, 2023
Question

Establishing new Catalog after an external hard drive failure.

  • November 4, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 1181 views

Hi. I'm running Lightroom Classic 13.0.1 with a 2023 Apple MacBook Pro on Ventura 13.5.2 (M2 Pro Chip). I keep LR backups and more on a 2 TB hard drive with only Lightroom on it. Yesterday that drive failed just after I imported some 150 photo from a Nikon D7100, and froze my computer and restarted it. I have been always copying that drive to a second drive daily with Carbon Copy Cloner. My first response was to buy a new hard drive, and yesterday I copied everything on the backup drive to the new drive and named it Lightroom (like the failed one's name) (took 2 hours to transfer). Of course, when I opened Lightroom Classic after the computer was restarted,  it could not find its destination. In this process, at one point I was asked to perform an update to v13ircat, which apparently was supposed to transfer all my 35,000+ photos to the new catalog.  I did that, from apparently "Lightroom Catalog.ircat" according to searching Most Recent. The v13 catalog can find none of my thumbnails, folders, or collections. In some fit of desperation I went to my Apple Pictures folder and found Lightroom Library.Library. I opened it, and IT seems to be the Cloud version of Lightroom on my laptop (???), and it populated with all my image thumbnails. Not Classic at all. Looks just like on my phone. It also populated with 4 - just 4 apparently - of my collections, of which there are way over 100 (and NO parent folders, just like I was on the iPhone version of LR). I actually created two more catalogs v13-2 and -3, once again desperate, which of course can't find anything either. I am enclosing five screen shots showing: 1. What is in Apple Pictures folder concerning Lightroom; 2. The prompt that shows upon opening my old import destination, which is titled: /volumes/LIGHTROOM PHOTO/Lightroom 5 Catalog, which worked perfectly before the HD failure, and which caused me to do the update; 3. What shows when opening the Lightroom.Lightroom Library - the cloud result; 4. The prompt that appears when choosing Catalog v13; 5. Contents of the new Lightroom hard drive.  At this point I am completely lost and of course want to have a catalog that includes all my thumbnails, folders, and collections in place.  I can be reached by phone as this might be extremely complicated. . . 310-850-2725. Thank you.

 

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    2 replies

    Rob_Cullen
    Community Expert
    Rob_CullenCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 9, 2023

    In this last screen-clip it shows that two drives are not connected. (There is no green light!)

    Where are these drives? And do they store all your photos? What is shown when you click on the white disclosure triangles of each drive?

    If the image files are on these drives, then that (disconnected drives) is the reason they are all shown as 'Missing' (and grey). Re-connect these drives and the thumbnail previews should re-build, IF they are in the folder structure that LrC is showing.

    MISSING FILES & FOLDERS (Lightroom Queen)

     

    This Catalog is showing 42865 images imported, and yet you believe "still missing perhaps the last two years".

    Then the possibility is that you imported them to another Catalog. You will need to find that catalog by opening each in turn and looking at the contents (with the drives connected!)

    When the 'last two years' are found in a catalog- you will need advice on the method to 'Merge' the "two years" into this large catalog of 42865 images.

     

     

    Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .
    richardn81299187
    richardn81299187Author
    Known Participant
    November 12, 2023

    Hi Rob,

    I have opened every catalog that is presented to me in recent, and with HDs connected and up, the best catalog I can come up with overall is: Lightroom Catalog-v13-3.Ircat. It contains all thumbnails for 25,214 images, with collections as they existed in late 2020.  All other "recent" possibilities are either no images, or the 42,000 indicated images but NO thumbnails (all ? marks).  I tested with this catalog above and I was able to import 175 photos off my Nikon, and establish a new collection, and edit them.  Now, I can also open the LR Web version 7.0 on the same laptop. It has 32,576 photos and it seems to have my collections (BUT it calls them Albums, they are NOT in folders, just like on a phone or tablet, and there seems to be NO way to scroll down to see how many albums there are). I was able to open one of the collections (albums) I can see (since I can't scroll), "select all" from the thumbnails, and export the resulting jpgs to a folder in my desktop. I guess now what I'd like to do is get those into my LR Classic again under the catalog I have found to function, PLUS reserve them on my computer as edited and finished photos. So next question is - can the LR Web edition send imports to LR Classic? I am really sorry I was years ago under the misapprehension that Lightroom "holds" my originals, which of course is not true at all. Or I suppose I could fill a new catalog with the last two years from Facebook albums. Comments?

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    November 12, 2023

    " or the 42,000 indicated images but NO thumbnails (all ? marks)"

     

    So fix the question marks by following these instructions.

    Rob_Cullen
    Community Expert
    Rob_CullenCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 4, 2023

    1) Forget about the {Lightroom Library.Library} folder.!  It has NO bearing on your Lr-Classic problems! It has no connection (locally) with Lr-CLassic.

     

    2) Only in your screen-clips, the largest Catalog file I can see is (~268MB)-

    You do not show us what is in the {Lightroom 5 catalog / Lightroom 5 catalog} sub-folder. So I don't know if there is a larger catalog in that sub-folder.

     

    3) You have multiple (small) catalogs that are named  -13,  -13-2,  -13-3, indicating you are repeatedly upgrading an old, or the wrong 'old' (and empty) catalog (~1.7MB).

     

    4) Have a search in the {Lightroom 5 catalog / Lightroom 5 catalog} sub-folder for a large Catalog- it might be the one you should be upgrading.

    5) THEN you must change the LrC Preferences to always open the correct catalog, or at least force the dialog that gives you a choice of catalogs from which to select.   Holding down [Ctrl] when you start LrC will also show the Catalog choice dialog.

     

     

    Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .
    richardn81299187
    richardn81299187Author
    Known Participant
    November 5, 2023

    Hi Rob, in reply from above:

    1. Understood. That said, it looks like I could , if I had to, export photos from this source.

    2. I really don't understand subfolders. . . sorry.

    3. Yes I know. I think these should just go away since they had no results?

    4. How about this? I opened (or tried to open) the most recent backup in v.12 from the new LR hard drive . I got the prompt you see below. What should I do with this prompt? If v12 is working, why should I update it? Scared to try anything. This kind of upgrade, which I did 3 times as we know, results in NO thumbnails, no folders, no collections, nothing.

     

    5. When I get that far. . . 

     

    Rob_Cullen
    Community Expert
    Rob_CullenCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 5, 2023

    So it looks promising, but I still cannot be sure it is the catalog you want that contains all your data.

    It looks (in your clip) like you are upgrading a Version-12 catalog from the Backups folder. The "-v12" in the name suggests it is more recent that any of the other catalogs you have shown.  (More so than a Lr5 catalog.)

    So try it to check- upgrade it to v13.

    Every major upgrade of the Lightroom-Classic App (v12 > v13) requires a corresponding upgrade of the Catalog to work with new features.  (A catalog upgrade preserves the 'old' version and upgrades a copy to be compliant.)

     

    If and when you do find the catalog you want- It must be moved OUT of the Backups folder and into the {Pictures} or {Lightroom} parent folder. The {Backups} folder is not where a working Catalog should reside. And, also, Backups of the Catalog MUST be on another separate hard-drive, otherwise if you lose the drive you have lost the lot. 

     

    Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .
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