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alistairw72100433
Inspiring
August 21, 2019
Question

How to link to catalogue after iMac hard drive re install?

  • August 21, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 171 views

I have LR6 on my iMac and recently had to delete the hard drive  and re install OS and all files from Time machine back up.

When I came to open LR again it only shows the hard drive in the folder section on the left panel and not the external hard drive where the catalogue and photos are stored as it did before the re install. Some time ago I moved them off the hard drive to save space.

I tried to open the catalogue I was using on the external drive but this didn't work as I had message no photos.

How do I get LR to recognise the external hard drive and the old catalogue?

Any help much appreciated.

Alistair

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    Akash Sharma
    Akash Sharma
    Legend
    August 21, 2019

    Hi Alistrair,

    First try and open the original catalog file. This will be wherever you originally located it when you created it.

    If this was on the damaged drive it may be no more. However hopefully you used LR's back up to create backups to a separate drive. If so, find the most recent and open it. Once you have the original catalog or the back up open, you may have to relocate the image folder. Right click on the folder(s) showing as missing and select relocate. Then point LR to the new location where your files now are. If you ensured that all the folders containing your original files are located under one parent folder this is a quick and easy thing to do. If you haven't done this you will need to repeat the process for each missing folder.

    Make sure that your new external drive has the same drive letter as the old one that crashed. If it doesn't, change the drive letter. I'm not a Mac person, so don't know how to do that on a Mac. If that doesn't help you have to relink the photos. See here on how to do this: nd here: Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders

    Thanks,

    Akash

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