Why can I no back up my catalog?

[Ken Nielsen]

For may years I've been able to backup my Lightroom catalog upon quiting, but now I get the message "Unable to backup catalog" after it tries to backup for a minute or so. I've unchecked the option boxes to 'check catalog intergrity' and the other check box but still get the same message. The catalog opens and seems to work fine but I am unable to backup. Any help with this for a solution would be much appreciated.  TIA, Ken

[Ken Nielsen]

I'm glad to have help here but it gets so complex, I just don't want to make another mess and wind up losing all that I have. I simply want to get Lightroom back on track to making backup copies of the catalog that I now and have used for years. When I ren across 'More information here...' I immediately know that this is a deep subject or there wouldn't need to be 'more information.' Then, looking at the link it starts out immediately saying "

1. Turn off any filters, e.g., all 5-star photos." and I back off even further from doing anything because I have ratings to all of my images that I don't want to lose, both color coding and star ratings as Lightroom allows. So, if I'm going to do a backup and first thing it wants me to turn off something and I don't even know how to turn off for thousands upon thouhsands of images... not something I want to toy with. I already ruined one computer by turning on permissions to all of the folders leading up to where the Lightroom catalog is stored on the hard drive, an irreversable move as the system told me as I was doing this. I"ve never had to mess with folders or permissions in the past and now with the new computer and the same catalog it tells me the same thing... I'm not going to do that one again. Also, diskp space nearly a terrabyte of open space on my hard drive, no lack of space. Something is wrong or corrupt. The catalog itself works beautifully and I add new images every day and no complaint. But when it comes time to backup the catalog Lightroom refuses with the error message 'not enough disk space or no permissions' What I've decided to do in the interim is to 'clone' my hard drive with the catalog on it... just to make sure I can go back to where I am today and continue working. Other than that something is wrong and I cannot back up my Lightroom catalog.

[Ken Nielsen]

It sounds like you know exactly how to do this. What I want to do is create a new catalog and keep all of the filters and color coding of images I've done. I so far have had no success and lots of time wasted importing images that are disorganized. My files are very organized on two hard drives, images saved in folders by date of shoot and kept in folders in each dated folder as 'originals' and 'modified' and soforth. Can I do what I'm trying to do? I want to move away from the existing catalog which must be corrupt as it will not backup. Is there something written down somewhere in a clear step-by-stope process so I can save my images with filters as well as moving them all into a newly created catalog. I'm sure this will work as I have created a new catalog, just no images imported yet and I can back it up no problem.