Major screwup - Is there anything I can do?

[mpion55]

Hello Guys,

I've screwed up big time. I had problems backing up my catalog in Organizer and I went ahaed and deleted my current catalog naively thinking I coulf just recreate it. Now I have tried restoring from a previous catalog, but nothing is working. I lost all of my tags and events and places I tried to restore my photos and all of a sudden I got multiple copies. I'm in deep sh...

Is there any way to salvage this, other then reinstall PSE and start from scratch with about 20,000 photos and videos dating back from 15 years? 

Btw I'm running PSE18 on Windoes 11.

Thanks 

PS. Please don't be too hard on me. That loud thump you might hear is me banging my head on the desk.  

[Greg_S.]

Have you ever had any other versions of Elements?

Do you only have one backup of the catalog?

How old is the catalog from which you restored a catalog without tags etc.?

How did you delete the current catalog?  Have you looked in the Recycle Bin to see if you can restore it from there?

[mpion55]

Hello Greg, 

Thanks for the reply. I was able to restore the catalog file from the Recycle bin but that did not work. when I try to open it I only get one photo with no tags whatsoever.

Doesn't look good 

[mpion55]

Actually I did not answer the other questions you had so;

• Yes I've had other versions of PSE but not on my current machine
• I do have another backup from about a year ago, but I could not restore that one. giving me a blank Organizer and no tags 

If i want to start from scratch should I deinstall and resinstall PSE?

Thanks again but looks like I'm scr.... 

[Greg_S. · Accepted solution]

What catalog folder/files did you restore from the Recycle Bin?  You should have restored all items that were deleted at the time you deleted the catalog.

Do you still have a working catalog on your old/different computer?  What version of Elements does it contain?  Can you backup that catalog (or use an existing catalog from  that machine) to an external drive and restore the catalog to your Elements 18 insallation?

To help you find the necessary files, try downloading and installing a free utility called Everything.  Once you have installed it, search any and all of your computers  with a search term catalog.pse db.  Make sure you have a space between pse and db.  This will find all of your Elements catalogs something like this:

Show us a screenshot of your search results.  (Everything will even search your Recycle Bin.)

[mpion55]

Thanks Greg, I was able to retrieve an older backup that was just a couple of months old along with all my tags. Boy what a relief! All I have to do now is incorporate a few months of pictures which is a breeze compared to starting from scratch. 

Again thank you so much for your help  

[Greg_S.]

@mpion55, I'm glad you were able to resolve the problem.