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Les5EEA
Participant
February 2, 2021
Question

PSE 10 linking to files on wrong drive

  • February 2, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 443 views

My Desktop PC runs Windows 10 and has two drives, C and E. The latter, E, is a backup – a clone of drive C created twice weekly.

I’ve recently gone back to using Photoshop Elements 10 as an organiser, having not used it for several years. I find that if I import photographs from the C drive, then the next time I look at them PSE has linked instead to the copies on the E drive. If I edit one, the edited version is on the E drive rather than on C.

I tried removing the photos from the catalogue and then adding them back again, just in case I made a mistake when importing, but it still links to the versions on the E drive. I then tried disconnecting the E drive. PSE then shows the files correctly, until I reconnect the E drive, and after the next reboot PSE once again shows the versions from the E drive.

Does anybody understand what’s going on?

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

MichelBParis
MichelBParis
Legend
February 2, 2021

Yes, what you are seeing is the result of the cloning of your drives. That is becoming a common issue with users cloning their system drive to an SSD drive and keeping the old drive with another drive letter.

It looks like you are cloning as a backup strategy which gives the same problem:

The result is that you probably have the catalog corrupted because the cloning has created two different drive descriptions and identifications in the database... with the same drive serial number. The organizer does not know which is which.

Since Windows is able to change the letter number of a drive if another drive has been plugged in before, the catalog can't identify the drive only with the letter. The catalogs gets the drive serial number from Window.

You can check this with the DOS prompt

vol C :

or vol E:

You should see the same hexadecimal value for both drives.

 

You won't be able to solve your issue while the serial numbers are the same.

Cloning as a backup is not a solution either. Your cloning utility should be able to simply 'Sync' your media file tree. It should also Sync the catalog folder. Note that the 'synced' catalog folder will work with the media files on the original drive.

Keep in mind that only the backup and restore process of the organizer will save both the media files and the catalog while keeping the links to the restored files.

gfmucci
gfmucci
Known Participant
February 2, 2021

Are you saying that a backup of Catalog and Files should be made only from WITHIN the Organizer and that making backups from OUTSIDE the Organizer, whether by cloning or by moving, copying, pasting files from within Windows File Explorer or external Syncing Program will create file problems for the Organizer/Catalogs?

________________________________________________________________________________________ Fuji HS50EXR, Samsung S9+. Nikon Coolpix P950. Just transitioned from PSE and PE 9 to 2021
MichelBParis
MichelBParis
Legend
February 2, 2021

@gfmucci 

Yes,

See my answer to the similar question you posted in the other forum:

https://photoshopelementsandmore.com/threads/recent

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