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I did not back up my external hard drive. I paid Geek Squad to recover all my photos. When I got my new external hard drive back, Lightroom does not recognize it. My old hard drive opened up to a primary folder entitled "photos-master-K" with all my subfolders. The new hard drive came back and did not open up to that primary folder. Instead to get to that folder you need to click on several other folders. How do I fix that.
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Lightroom Classic (is that the software you are using? you said "Lightroom") does not "recognize" photos or folders. It only know about what is in its catalog (database).
You have to tell Lightroom Classic the new location of each folder(s), see the instructions in this document.
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After following DJ-Paige's suggestion, if you still do not see LR recognizing your new drive and folders,
Would you please tellus which computer (Mac or PC) and operating software you are using?
I recommend always keeping at least two preferably three external drives as identiacal backups, with all the original photo files on them, and a copy of my latest Lightroom catalog...just for when a drive fails
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Lightroom simply catalogs your images, and keeps a file (data) of the edits you have made.
So when your folders of images move from one drive to another, you need to use Lightroom as a hub and point it to the new location. You do not need to do this for each image, you simply need to select one imge -usually the first image - in the folder, and then follow the promtps to direct it to the new location.
Just like a book library catalog. If the books are moved to a new shelf, the librarian needs to open the catalog and type in where the new location is. All the data about the book stays the same, just the location is updated.
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What version of LR are you using?
When you say LR does not recognize it, does that mean your photos are shown as missing?
What is your OS? If it's Windows (which I know) your disk may not automatically be mounted to the correct drive letter. That can be fixed in Computer Managment.