I moved my photos to a new HD. They're still in the finder, but Lightroom has lost most of them

[JohnBeeSharp]

I am having a problem when I copied images from one drive to another because my drive was failing.  I need the images and the editing that was done to them in the folder.  I would like to have the images in identical folders on the new drive.  I have spent seven hours on this, most of it (over 4 hours) in communication with Adobe. SOME of the photos copied over, but a huge number are missing and I am completely at a loss. What do I need to do?  I have tried updating the folder location and synchronizing the folder. It took a long time for Adobe even to be able to take control of my Mac. 

I am desperate. I have over 30,000 photos that I can still see in the finder windows, but Lightroom will no longer show them. The Import button (the one on the right side) is now permanently grayed out.

Lightroom Classic version 11.0.1

MacOS Big Sur 11.5.2

These photos represent 22 years of photos, thousands of hours of editing, 19 countries and hundreds of miles of treks. 

All I did was move them from move them from one drive to another. Yes, I did it in the finder, but I was unable  to do it in Lightroom either. Please help, O Wise Community.

[Rob_Cullen · Accepted solution]

Do NOT import photos.

Do NOT do a Folder synchronize.

Re-link Folders (preferably the topmost 'Parent' folder) that you copied to the new drive following instructions from this blog article by the Lightroom Queen (Using- Option Two)-

MOVING PHOTOS- 2 Methods

[JohnBeeSharp]

Thank you. I get that I should not try to import photos after moving to a new hard drive and that relinking the photos is the way to do it. I know that now.

Now, how do I get the pictures back into the LrC catalog that I tried to import before I learned the things I shouldn't do? Is this a failing of Lightroom, or is it just me?

[dj_paige]

Your photos are still in the Lightroom Classic catalog. You have to re-link them, as explained by the instructions given above, or in these instructions: http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

[JohnBeeSharp]

Oh my gosh, thank you so much, Rob_Cullen and dj_paige for the help. This has been torturing me for a couple of weeks now, and I am relieved to see the wizards of the community not only have the answers, but also are amazingly quick to help! Cheers!