retriving photos back to lightroom

[kvsliney]

i have lost a good number of photos with ? marks and i have not been able to locate them in my windows files.they do show up in lightroom with a ? mark. is there anyway to reactivate thest photos so i can work with them.if anyone can help i would be greatful it tough to loose photos?  

[JP Hess]

The ? Indicates that, at least as far as Lightroom is concerned, the photos are missing. That would indicate that the photos have either been moved outside of Lightroom or else they have been deleted, and all Lightroom has available are the preview images that were created before Lightroom lost track of where the images were located. Have you searched for the images using File Explorer? You indicate that you have not been able to locate them in your Windows files. You probably already know this, but I'll point out anyway that the images are never "in" Lightroom. The Lightroom catalog is only a database that keeps track of where the images are located on your computer as well as changes that you have made using Lightroom.

[Jonjohn123]

[Tony_See]

Have you tried to relink to the "missing" image files by clicking on the "?" in the Catalog thumbnail?

Then you need to navigate to that file on your OS or other storage media to reconnect it to your Library.

[richardplondon]

If you cannot find them in Windows then you need to first check whether any external drive that the files were previously on, has been since disconnected. Reconnecting that may make the files become available again - BUT if this drive now gets a different automatically assigned drive letter than was the case before, that would be enough to make LR consider all the files on it unavailable - because, not under the previous drive letter which LR is still remembering. The solution for that varying drive letter is to manually set one which is later in the alphabet, and therefore will not risk competing with other devices, as to automatically assigned drive letters. 

Then you'd need to show Lightroom where to find these images, going forward.

On the other hand if you have deleted the files concerned after their import to Lightroom, those are now gone. Being Imported to LR is like someone getting a new job - in that it is this same individual who now (additionally) begins working for that employer: there is no newly cloned, separate "employee" individual created.

The image files may be recoverable from backup / recycle bin or failing that, from the camera memory card off which they originally came.