LR has lost connection to external harddrive / all folder disappeared

[Sabine5F97]

Hello, I work in LR with my external harddrive. Last weekend I used a thumb drive to import files and then pluuged in my external harddrive again. No Im having troubles, LR does not connect to any of my folders anymore on my external harddrive. It appears as online, but non of the folders show so all my work on those pictures is lost. Can anyone help me how to reconnect the path for the external harddrive? Its really hard to explain (especailly in englsih since Im german) but costumer support hotline is not helpful at all. 

[JohanElzenga · Accepted solution]

You do not mention which OS you use, but it sounds like it might be Windows. Inserting the thumbdrive before you plugged in the external hard drive will probably have reset the drive letter of that external hard drive. The thumbdrive now has the drive letter that Lightroom thinks the external drive should have, so Lightroom is looking for the images on the thumbdrive. That is why the drive is shown as connected, but no images are found.

[Sabine5F97]

Hi JohanElzenga, YES!! But how do I fix it???

[Just Shoot Me]

Manaully Assign a Drive Letter to your external drive. Google how to do that.

[JohanElzenga]

I'm not a Windows user, but I think that removing the thumbdrive and restarting the computer (with the external drive attached) should fix it. The best way to solve this is to give the external drive a fixed high drive letter, however. Set the letter to P (Photos), for example. That way it won't happen again. Here's how to do that: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-assign-a-drive-letter-in-windows-10/

Of course that will mean that Lightroom still can't find the images, so here's how to fix that. Remove the thumbdrive and restart Lightroom. Now Lightroom will show the images and the folders as 'missing', because now there is no drive with the 'correct' letter anymore. Relink the missing folders by following these instructions: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-photos-missing-fix/