How to find LR Catalog files after a crash ?

[polarmedia]

I started using Adobe Lightroom back in 2007 🙂

Then in 2012 a got a computer crash. 😕

Back then, I have reinstall everything from 0... AND I also have paid a company to make a FULL backup of my 500 gig crash hard drive. That company gave me all my files as I asked, but they were all loose, and they were all renamed with a serial number only, no more names, and some with no extensions in the naming. So some are now "000001.jpg" for images, and some are now "qwertyzxcvbn" for others.

How can I find the good Lightroom file in the multi thousand files gathering I got from that crash restore file backup ?

Any hint ?

I have search for ".lrc" but no luck. So there must be another hint to try to find that Catalog file that was renamed and have no extension on its naming.

My wish ? is to fin my old Lightroom Catalog with data from 2007 to 2012. And so get back all my years of photo touch ups already made.

Any help is welcome, please.

[GoldingD]

Search criteria should have been .lrcat

ahh but .lrc should have been enough

[Rob_Cullen]

Lightroom Catalogs are databases. They do NOT contain any photos.

If you can find and open a Catalog (with the file type of .LRCAT) then it will not be able to reference the restored files with the changed names.

If a photo in the Catalog is called ABCD.JPG then it must have a file ABCD.JPG on your hard-drive to link to.

You might be able to relink the catalog preview ABCD.JPG with the file  000001.jpg if you could visually match the preview to the image, but that would be an incredibly laborious job doing it one-by-one.

If you do not have Backups of the correctly named files then -my sympathies- you are better to start off a new catalog. Your "touch ups" do not exist.

[polarmedia]

Thanks for your answers

i did the search again with .lrcat but same result.

I am pretty sure I would be able to match all photos with old catalog, if I can find the catalog. As my pictures had another backup before the crash so for the images itself, I am ok. BUT, I really need to find that old catalog back...

[Rob_Cullen]

If you have searched all drive locations for a catalog  .LRCAT file and none exist, I think you out of luck.

Only you know the name of your catalogs, but you may find some helpful clues for restoring in this link-

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/disaster-strikes-corrupted-catalog/

As my pictures had another backup before the crash

A Backup of a "My Pictures" folder may well contain a catalog as that is often the default location for Lightroom catalogs.