Backing Up PE2019 Catalog Temporarily Lost Photos but Not Albums

[judyw46460634]

Backing Up PE2019 Catalog Temporarily Lost Photos but Not Albums

I’m using PE2019 on a laptop with an SSD. I keep my photos, my PE catalog from when I got my new laptop, and other files on my black passport EHD. I keep my last three PE catalog backups on my blue passport EHD. When I backed up my PE catalog about two weeks ago,  I deleted my last catalog backup from the blue EHD to make room for the new one and ran the Backup Catalog as usual. Afterwards, when I clicked on my albums in Organizer, they were all empty. My photos disappeared from inside PE2019 but still exist outside of PE2019 in Photos. When I checked today, my photos were there. I’m glad they’re there, but what is going on? All I think I did was check the Manage Catalog in case I had it set wrong (see below) Do I have things set up correctly for the next time I back up my catalog?

Black Passport EHD has:

My PSE Catalog Restored (from when I migrated to new laptop)

PE2019 Catalog 20220424 Full Backup

Photos (all my photos, most but not all in PE2019, I still need to import the rest)

Other files, like Desktop, Documents, Downloads, etc.

Blue Passport EHD has:

PE2019 Catalog 20220207 Full Backup

PE2019 Catalog 20220423 Full Backup

PE2019 Catalog 20220706 Full Backup – most recent

Catalog Manager in PE2019

Custom Location is selected

D:\My PSE Catalog Restored - listed underneath

My Catalog 1 [Current] – in white box underneath, I tried to change this to fix the problem, don’t think it actually changed, don’t know for sure what it was set to when I backed up catalog

[MichelBParis]

Hi @judyw46460634 ,

I don't think there is not much to worry about from your post, apart from the title which does not make sense for me. It looks like you were on a wrong catalog at some moment...

Your very precise explanation shows that you have valid full backups and that your photos are still present in their original location. Since it is the original location, in 'Photos', then I presume they are still on your new SSD drive on C :

Just note that what the catalog manager shows to you when browsing catalogs is the location of  catalog folders;  it completely ignores full backup folders. The location of the files themselves is shown in the right information panel on the right, and the location of the current catalog folder is displayed from the Help menu, system information. In your case, it's in drive D :

Could you precise the drive letters of your system drive:

- probably C for the system drive, including the Elements programs?

- D for another internal drive, unless it's the letter of one of your EHDs?

- The drive letters of your EHDs?

By the way, having the photo files themselves on the SSD and the catalog folder on a different drive is not usual, but why not?  A new discussion about how to optimize that choice could be interesting.

What is important is that you have still your photo files plus valid full backups. Backing up can't change anything to your media files nor to your catalog.