using lightroom 4 and moving photos to external ss drive

[lindam12345]

I am currently using Lightroom 4 and went to Simply Computing to get them to move my photos to an external ssd drive which they did outside of lightroom by using finder and then deleted photos off my Mac book Pro. I was told the next step was to import the photos into the lightroom library on the hard drive (cataglog and Lroom is on hard drive). I found out as we started importing a few photos that my keywords and edits are gone.I was told by Simply that the cataloq for the origional install could not be used as all the file location has changed therefor the keywords and other specific information is not relevant to that catalolg.  I was also told that if I update to lightroom classic my keywords and edits would be lost anyways. So I am wondering  if I just start over ( I have a back up of all the photos, cataloq  settings on an  external drive that I made prior to going to Simply ) if the photos were moved from inside of lightroom to the external if I would retain my keywords & edits and also the future plan may be to upgarde to lightroom classic so would would I loose the keywords and edits  anyways. Since this issue I have also discovdered the brand new Scan Disc SSD drive the photos were transfered to is now  unmountable and has to be reformatted so my photos are lost on it. 

Lina

[dj_paige]

I was told the next step was to import the photos into the lightroom library on the hard drive (cataglog and Lroom is on hard drive).

This is incorrect (AND VERY BAD) advice.

I was told by Simply that the cataloq for the origional install could not be used as all the file location has changed therefor the keywords and other specific information is not relevant to that catalolg. 

This is incorrect (AND VERY BAD) advice.

You need to use the old catalog, open it as normal; and then point it to the new location of your photos on the SSD. Instructions are here: https://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

[lindam12345]

Thanks I thought there  may be a way. I'll have to first get the photos on the external drive . The tutorial say for lightroom 5 and newer hope it will work for lightroom 4

[dj_paige]

The only thing different about Lr 4 is that instead of exclamation point icons on your photos in Lr 5, you will have question mark icons on your photos in Lr 4. But that doesn't matter, just reconnect entire folders, or even better yet reconnect entire "trees" of folders..