Copy develop settings off missing photo

[Lottie5E94]

Hey guys,

While in the middle of editing photos in Lightroom classic, my hard drive crashed. I was using photo mechanic to import to lightroom and I now have lost hours of work. The hard drive isn't reading and makes a clicking noise. I have disk drill to recover but it doesn't pop up within there either. 

I have the photos on the original SD card, so in theory, this isn't a total loss. I can still see a lot of the settings and in the library, I can see the photos pretty clearly. Anyone know of a way to copy just the develop settings? I really don't want to start again from scratch and am hoping there is another way to copy the develop settings.  Thank you! 

Any tips on the hard drive as well? It's an older lacie hard drive but I have never had this happen before.

[dj_paige]

If the edits are in the catalog (which you say they are), then no copying of the settings is needed. When you get the hard disk fixed or replaced, just copy the original photo from the camera card to its location where Lightroom Classic expects it to be (wherever you imported it to)

[Ian Lyons]

Adding to what DJ_paige wrote - use the OS copy command to copy the files from the card to the appropriate folder. Do not use Lightroom import!

BTW, above assumes that you did not rename the files on import or after.

[Lottie5E94]

Meaning copy from the memory card, not the hard drive as was originally used? I will try this out now! Nothing has been renamed! Thanks 

[Lottie5E94]

Unfortunately that didn't work. Seems wild to me that lightroom actually saves the develop settings but doesn't allow you to copy them. I can see a lot so technically could go photo by photo and copy the settings myself, aside from not being able to switch color hues to see what those were at, most other settings are visible. 

[wknight35]

I am having the same problem. And I renamed the files during import. Any solutions?

[Lottie5E94]

The thing is that I can't get the hard drive fixed for awhile. Too costly. I've tried the at home methods of freezing etc but nothing has worked