Lightroom catalogue sync after data recovery

[Stefano LTB]

Hello everyone,

the worst thing happened!

My external hard drive where I used to store all my lighroom raw files just passed away. Luckily, I could recover all my pics using a data recovery software. However, the software didn't recover the pictures as they were archived (one main folder with plenty of subfolders) and put all my pictures in one big folder.

Result? LR can find all my pictures but the different folders in the catalogue are now empty.

Is there any way I can get LR to match the raw files with the folders in the catalogue (given that those folders don;t exist anymore on the HDD), o do I have to manually rebuild my catalogue?

Thanks much for any advice you could give me!

[KR Seals]

How are the files named? Are the original dates visible in the file list? Did the recovery find the originals as originally named?

This process will be easier on a machine with two screens:

Have LrC up and running on one screen.

Have your file browser on the other screen set to view the image files. If the files have their original dates, sort by date.

Start with the earliest folder in LrC in library module. Look at the images in LrC, then find the same image in your file browser and rename exactly including the file extension. You may be able to see a pattern in names and dates that will help you narrow down the file groupings.

[ManiacJoe]

Depends on how the files were originally organized.

If the folders were originally date based, you could create a new catalog and import the files using a "copy" or "move" import to get the folders recreated. Then go back to the original catalog and do "find missing folder" as needed.

This will not be pretty, but should help get you closer to where you were.