Why can't I no longer import photos into my external hard drive using Lightroom CC External Portable Drive without a second copy of my RAW file being created

[juliew25281042]

I use an external hard drive to store my photos. I don;t like smart previews and always work from my external hard drive. However, I am having problems importing from my hard drive in the library mode. I've been doing this successfully for years- with only one RAW file being left on my hard drive. And have spent hours trying to work out what on earth I am doing wrong.

I open Import select the folder I want to import from.

Then select the photos- the only option available is copy- which is always the case when using an external drive.

I used to be able to see the folders and files I had imported and I have many folders, with successfully imported photographs.

Now I can no longer seem to do this without generating a copy- the RAW files are big so I dont want to do this.

Can anyone point me in the right direction.

All help gratefully received.

Julie

[juliew25281042]

Thank you to everyone who helped me get to the reason this was happening. Very much appreciated and I also learnt some new things along the way.

Julie

[juliew25281042]

Hi I still have a question. I am being told that if I format my sandisk to NTFS then I will not be able to write to it in from my Mac. I mainly use my Mac to work on my photographs so I'm not sure what to do next.

Julie

[Just Shoot Me]

You will need a utility, program of sorts, installed on the Mac to be able to write to a drive that is formatted NTFS.

Or you can format it in the Mac format and install a utility on Windows to both read and write to it.

[saharanz]

I have this problem too.  I haven't changed anything - same computer, same hard drive, but I am now unable to 'add' photos to the catalogue from my hard drive.  The only available option is Copy.