Recovery of Lightroom images after HDD crash

[Thomas23885678o87g]

Hello, 

I face the following challenge:

• I run LR Classic V 13.0.1 with my catalogue of ~100k images on a local HDD
• The images (RAW and DNG format) were stored on a local NAS-Server.
• I synched roughly half of the images/albums into LR cloud based. Almost all images over the past 2yrs or so. 
• This NAS Server crashed, all data is lost. The newests working backups > 3 yrs old

I now face the challenge of recovering as many of my old images from different sources as possible:

I have a woerking catalogue, some images from LR cloud and some old backups which I can use.

Can someone please suport me in what is the best method/process to stitch that back together?

Thanks a lot, any help very much appreciated.

Best Thomas

[GoldingD]

What was the RAID  level on that NAS?

[Thomas23885678o87g]

It was RAID 5 but this is irrelevant for here. As I said all data on NAS is lost (confirmed by profoessional data recovery company).

[Thomas23885678o87g]

Any thoughts on this??

[Rob_Cullen]

Your original 'lost' images from the last 3 years are gone. Never to be seen again.

IMO The best you can do is- (if the previews still exist in Lightroom-Desktop),  Export them from Lightroom-Desktop to a local folder as "Small JPGS", or better "Small TIFFs"

You will get image files that are ~2048pixels on the long edge.

You cannot export them as anything "Full-Size" as the full-size file does not exist in the Lightroom Cloud ecosystem.

Then start again from 'scratch' with the smaller image files, and any existing files you can find on drives.

I can only stress the need to have full-size copies (backups) of ALL your original image files on a physical separate storage medium.

[Thomas23885678o87g]

Thanks for the help! Two follow up questions:

- How do I best export the previews from Lightroom-Desktop to a local folder as "Small JPGS", or better "Small TIFFs"?

- There are no oroginal files stored in LR Cloud (synced albums?

Best  rregards

Thomas

[Rob_Cullen]

I am going to need to apologize and change my suggestions.   An image 'deleted from Disk' in Lightroom-Classic (and synced to Lr from a Classic Collection) will also disappear from Lightroom-Desktop.  (It did not appear this way to me when I tested first time, )

So- IF, and only if,  you still see thumbnails of the synced images in Lightroom-Desktop  (not Classic), then you should be able to Select, Share, as JPG or TIF small.  Only your test will indicate if this is possible for you.

In Lightroom-Desktop (cloud)-  Smart Preview only! of an NEF original that was deleted from Disk in LrC

From Lightroom-Desktop on my PC;   Share-

And my result saved to PC Desktop-

If NOT possible for you, then the photos are LOST entirely!