restoring a catalog from backup issues

[gils3758504]

Hi.

I have my catalog placed in my PC inside an internal folder. (Win10) That's a catalog of around 600 GB of storage. 

something happens and the catalog is not displayed on PSE so I had to restore it from backup. the backup also sits on the same internal folder on my PC. 

as part of the restore process, I have to select a folder where I should restore the catalog to. so I'm selecting a different folder than the original one, and this folder is also an internal folder in my PC. now, as far as I understand the restore is recreating my catalog on that destination folder, this means instead of having a catalog of 600GB on an internal folder, now I have almost 1000GB folders. and of course, the restore process is failing as I have not enough storage. 

my question- why does it work in such a way that it is basically duplicating all my catalog once I'm trying to restore from an existing catalog. 

I'm thinking maybe I should restore to the same original folder, but then it might delete all my catalog on back up files? 

note that working with external storage is irrelevant to me. 

any suggestions on how to restore without consuming all my PC storage is welcome. 

Many thanks!

Gil

[MichelBParis]

"note that working with external storage is irrelevant to me."

Then, the idea of a backup is meaningless?

What happens if something goes wrong with your computer? Stealth, fire, flood, hardware or software crash, user destructive error? How do you move your catalog to another computer or restore after a critical operating system update?

Can you describe your system and main drive type?

You can post here the first 15 lines of the dialog you get from the menu Help >> System Information in the organizer.

[gils3758504]

Thanks, MichelBParis

let me rephrase that comment- I can and will back up to external storage, what I do no want is to work on daily basis with a connected external drive..(i mean after I will finish the restore process)

here is the sys info:

Elements Organizer 17.0.0.0
Core Version: 17.0 (20180830.m.125874)
Language Version: 17.0 (20180830.m.125874)

Current Catalog:
Catalog Name: My Catalog 2019
Catalog Location: E:\all catalog\Backup all\BACKUP\My Catalog 2019\
Catalog Size: 599.2MB
Catalog Cache Size: 1GB

System:
Operating System Name: Windows 10
Operating System Version: 10.0
System Architecture: Intel CPU Family:6 Model:14 Stepping:10 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2
Built-in Memory: 15.9GB
Free Memory: 7.9GB

[gils3758504]

is it make sense to restore from backup to the original folder? is it might be risky? 

[MichelBParis]

"is it make sense to restore from backup to the original folder? is it might be risky? "

The process has been implemented to avoid possible traps, but I have little experience with it myself, I prefer to test and check the restore result before removing the older photo library tree.

Your setup seems normal and I don't think you'll risk anything serious so long as you keep the backup folder for possible ulterior restore.

[MichelBParis]

"is it make sense to restore from backup to the original folder? is it might be risky? "

The process has been implemented to avoid possible traps, but I have little experience with it myself, I prefer to test and check the restore result before removing the older photo library tree.

Your setup seems normal and I don't think you'll risk anything serious so long as you keep the backup folder for possible ulterior restore.

[Greg_S.]

I don't mean to butt in here, but there are a couple of things that jumped out at me that may need to be addressed.

Gil said:

something happens and the catalog is not displayed on PSE so I had to restore it from backup.

You have not described the problem that originated your search for an answer here.  You may want to make sure that this original problem does not reoccur with any backup you may have.

Gil said:

this means instead of having a catalog of 600GB on an internal folder, now I have almost 1000GB folders. and of course, the restore process is failing as I have not enough storage.

I just want to make sure that you are not confusing the catalog with the media that is referenced therein.  According to system info., your catalog is 600MB, not GB.  The catalog is not normally contained within the same folder or sub-folder(s) as your media folders.  At least, I don't think it would be good practice to set it up that way.  However, the backup folder does contain both the catalog AND the media files which can then be restored to the original location or a new one if need be.