I've installed Lightroom on a new computer. How do I access my photos?

[michellep9042661]

I've just upgraded from an old Samsung laptop to a new Dell desktop. I've always imported photos into Lightroom and Photoshop from my external hard drive. Any time I've had missing file issues it has been because my hard drive wasn't plugged in. The hard drive always showed as External drive G.

I've now installed Lightroom onto this new computer. I plugged in the external hard drive, and opened Lightroom, but none of my photos are there. On this computer, the hard drive is showing as Ecternal drive F.

Any suggestions on how to access my photos would be greatly appreciated. Thanks you! 

[dj_paige]

Change the drive letter on the new computer to G:

[DS256]

It sounds like the drive was just accepting the next available drive letter rather than being assigned as dj_paige suggested.

You can change the drive letter from F: back to G: if you haven't installed anything on F: that would be screwed up if you changed the drive letter.

To permanently assign a drive letter to an external drive, do the following:

1. Best to exit all applications
2. Open Windows CONTROL PANEL from START
3. Select ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS
4. Open COMPUTER MANAGEMENT
5. Double click on DISK MANAGEMENT under STORAGE
6. Find the drive marked F:
7. Right click inside the box where your see F: and choose CHANGE DRIVE LETTER
8. Follow the dialog accepting the warnding.

LrC should now be able to see all your photos

[John Waller]

You can also refer to this free eBook (free registration required) from Lightroom Queen which gives a thorough overview of the steps required to move Lightroom to a new computer.

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/moving-lightroom-free-ebook/