Folders aren't appearing on external hard drive

[Chezi]

I don't know when this started, I just noticed today.

When I am finished with a project/folder, I close LR and I move the folder to an external hard drive. When I open LR again, it's greyed out so I find the missing folder on the drive, and it then the folder correctly shows up under that dropdown for the drive. 

This has worked for years. 

Today I did that again--the folder had been moved earlier to the drive, and today I opened LR. I found the missing folder, and then, the drive shows up in the folders list, as if, it's brand new in LR. I think, wait a minute, all of the years of folders should be there too. The files are on the drive, all the photos are there when I open the Windows explorer, but it's like the catalog doesn't recognize them anymore. 

I start going through the backups; unzipping, and opening all the old catalogs (and bacause of the recent LR update, all of the catalogs have to be updated. Okay.) But the links are all totally gone. None of the backups show the folders exist on the external hard drive. 

So, what happened? How can I restore all the edits made to those photos on the external drive? Thank you.

LR 15.0.1, Windows 11 Pro

[AxelMatt]

First, you need to make sure that the external hard drive is ALWAYS connected with the same drive letter.

Try to move the appropriate images back to the place on which you make your editings.

When I am finished with a project/folder, I close LR and I move the folder to an external hard drive.

By @Chezi

This is wrong way. All file operations, like moving from pictures to another folder or drive should be doing IN Lightroom.

In this case the links in Lightroom's catalog would be changed correct.

[Chezi]

Try to move the appropriate images back to the place on which you make your editings.

By @AxelMatt

This is confusing to me, I'm sorry. The files  have been on the drive in the same spot the whole time. So what is it I'm moving, where?

Like, you might be telling me to move the folders back from the external to the main drive. But then what? Import them like I would with new photos? Are you saying Lightroom Cl will automatically recognize that it had made edits to it before? Because if that's the case, then I should just import them from the drive they're on now, ...which I just did, and no, the edits aren't saved. So what else would I need to do for Lightroom to recognize it has already edited these? I'm just saying that when the photos were on the external drive, Lightroom could still edit them there, and there wasn't a problem.

[AxelMatt]

Ok. I seems I've already misunderstood your issue a little bit.

I've read your original post several times, but I've already issue to understand them correctly.

You've images in a folder and edited this images in Lightroom. After the project is finished you close Lightroom and MOVE this folder including the images to a external hard drive with the Windows Explorer. So it's only on the external drive. Correct? 

The folder name in the library should be greyout and the images in the grid view should have an exclamation mark. Correct!?

Do I understand your problem correctly now?

And then? What happened or should happen? What do you expect? What you're doing after this? 

If you like to see the folder on the external hard drive in LrC's library view you should have to relink one of the images in the folder. All other imges in the folder will be automatically relinked.

Lightroom thinks my photos are missing—how do I fix it? | The Lightroom Queen 

[Chezi]

Alright, sort of. 

The first part is correct. I edited photos in LrC. After the project is finished, I close the program. Then move the folder to an external drive. Next time I open LrC, the folder is greyed out. So I re-link the folder to the external drive, and everything is good. This has been going well for years, no problems. The folders appear in LrC as they should, when the drive is plugged in. 

Today, the folders just don't exist when viewed in Lightroom. I cannot "re-link" to them because there's no option to link to anything. There's nothing to click for me to link something. There's nothing greyed out, because the folders are just gone from Lightroom.

The folders are still there on the drive, all the photos can still be seen from Windows Explorer, but they don't appear when viewed from the catalog. Any catalog. All the backups don't show that they previously were linked to the drive, which, they used to be. 

So the issue has to be with the catalog, or LrC not being able to see a path to the drive. 

[AxelMatt]

@Chezi  Very mysterious. I haven't seen any such behavior yet. 

I think this can't be a catalog problem. In this case the folders must been seen in the backups.

How is the external hard drive connected? Via USB? If yes, try another USB-Port.

Try to reset the preferences of Lightroom Classic:  How to reset Lightroom Classic preferences (adobe.com)

It's recommended to backup your preferences before you reset the preferences to the default settings: 

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/preference-file-and-other-file-locations.html

Is your system up-to-date? Do you have installed all recent updates and patches for the operating system and the device drivers, especially the device and chipset driver for your mainboard. Please make also sure that you have installed the Studio version and not the Game Ready version of your NVidia driver.

Please provide a copy of your 'System Info'. This can be get from the Lightroom menu item Help > System Info. There's a copy button in the System Info dialog. Press this button and paste the info into your next forum post.

What has been changed on your system before the error occur?

[dj_paige]

I'm going to disagree with @AxelMatt , it is actually safer to do the move in LrC, and then re-link the catalog. And since the designers of LrC provided two ways to do the move, including doing it in your operating system, I don't see a problem.

@Chezi :

I'm having trouble understanding the current situation on your computer that you tried to describe in words. Can you show us a screen capture of this problem? Please use the "Insert Photos" icon to include your screen capture in your reply.

Lastly, @Chezi to reduce confusion and increase clarity (always a good thing to do), please refer to your software as Lightroom Classic or LrC; it is not Lightroom or Lr which is entirely different software.

[Chezi]

Simply put, the folders don't show up here anymore. I have lots of folders under the drive C: as usual, but under E:, those folders are all gone. Missing the link. This "porsche table" is the only folder because that's where I linked it to after I had moved it to the drive. 

Sorry, thank you for the tip, it is LrC.

[dj_paige]

It is not clear what you are moving to the E: drive. Are you moving only the photos, or only the catalog file, or both photos and catalog file?

Not counting backups, it is not clear to me if you are talking about one catalog for everything, or many catalogs. Which is it?