New disk, PSE / LR catalogues broken

[steich]

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Hello,

 

I "implanted" a new, larger hard disk into my laptop. More partitions, data partition has changed from d:/ to h:/.

How can I tell PSE 4 and LR1.4 that this has happened?

The catalogues open, but all files are "missing". I tried "reconnect" (don´t know if it´s the exact term, my PSE only speaks German), but it didn´t work.

Any ideas?

I still have my old HD with all the data and Win XP - could it help to re-implant it?

 

Thanks!

 

Stefan

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[Shootist]

Sorry I don't understand.

Do you have 2 physical had drives in your notebook?

If you do you can change the drive letter assignment using Disk Management, that is if you are on a PC.

 

Perhaps you messed up on the partitioning.

 

In any event you first have to move the CD/DVD drive letters and any CF/SD card readers that are built into your notebook drive letters down the list and then move the new partition up the list. You can then move the CD/DVD drive letter back to just under the last partition on your hard drive.

 

Even if you do all this some of your programs may not find the data and you will need to point them to it.

As far as LR just browse to the catalog and open it. Then in preferences you have to select Use Last catalog openned when starting LR, or something like that. Or you can tell LR to always use that catalog when starting LR.

[farnz]

Stefan,

 

If you hold down your Ctrl key (Command key for Macs) when you open Lightroom it will ask you to point to which catalog you want it to open. Then just navigate to your catalog and you're away.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Pete.

[stephan_w]

yes, or just copy your old catalogue to the new harddrive. when LR shows you that the links are broken, indicate the new location of the file.

[steich]

@shootist:

No, just one drive. The old one was full, I changed it for a larger one.

 

@farnz:

I can already open the (old) catalogue. But it reports all files "missing"- as it obviously tries to find them on drive(partition) d:/, while the files are now on h:/.....

 

@stephanw:

Yes, I could do that.....for each of my 8900 files...could take a while. I had the hope that after telling LR where ONE file is, it would be looking for the other missing files on the same drive....but LR doesn´t seem to like the idea.

Any other option?

 

I think I will reinstall the old HD, then make a full backup to an external HD, and then let LR and PSE reconstruct the files to my new drive. Could that work?

 

Thanks for your help!

Stefan

[stunsworth]

Did you try Googel? I searched "moving lightroom catalogue" and this was the second hit...

 

Discussion Forums @ Nikonians - Moving Lightroom Catalog

[steich]

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@stunsworth:

Thank you. I googled, but obviously with less success than you.

Looks interesting, I´ll try as soon as I am on my own computer again.

 

Stefan

[Shootist]

@shootist:

No, just one drive. The old one was full, I changed it for a larger one.

 

@farnz:

I can already open the (old) catalogue. But it reports all files "missing"- as it obviously tries to find them on drive(partition) d:/, while the files are now on h:/.....

 

@stephanw:

Yes, I could do that.....for each of my 8900 files...could take a while. I had the hope that after telling LR where ONE file is, it would be looking for the other missing files on the same drive....but LR doesn´t seem to like the idea.

Any other option?

 

I think I will reinstall the old HD, then make a full backup to an external HD, and then let LR and PSE reconstruct the files to my new drive. Could that work?

 

Thanks for your help!

Stefan

 

What you really need is a Drive Imaging program like Acronis True Image and another program for merging unallowcated hard drive space into a existing partition. That program would be Acronis Disk Director 10.

Using True Image you image (Back up) your original drive. Install the new drive and use True Image again to restore that original image to the new drive, doing this will partition the new drive just like the old and place everything back exactly where it was on the new drive as it was on the old. Then use Disk Director to either make a NEW partition with the remaining space or Merge it into one of your existing partitions.

 

But right now your real problem is the drive letters being all over the place instead of them beinig C, D, E, Whatever for all the partitions on the hard drive and then your CD/DVD drive and then your CF/SD card readers. Best practice when installing a new drive is to disconnect all readers and external drive while you are setting up the new drive. This could be hard to do if you have card readers built into the notebook. You might be able to disable them in the BIOS before installing a new drive, I don't know as I've never had a notebook, or desktop, that had built in card readers.

 

Not sure how you copied your old drive to the new or what program you used to make a new partition.

[farnz]

What you really need is a Drive Imaging program like Acronis True Image (etc) ....

Thanks, Ed, that's really useful to me and helps with an unrelated issue I've got.

 

Pete.

[Shootist]

Thanks, Ed, that's really useful to me and helps with an unrelated issue I've got.

 

Pete.

 

Pete I've been using Acronis True Image for a number of years and it has saved my butt many times and Acronis Disk Director goes hand in hand with it.

Especially when I want to install a new larger hard drive or when I have a HDD crash, IE go bad. I also use it to do a image of my main OS and Program drive just before I install new software. If I don't like the software I just load in the image I just created and I'm back up and running in 15-20 minutes minus the software I just tried.

 

There are some quirks with some versions. I'm still using version 9 of TI and that version does not see the newest chipsets from Intel and SATA drives when you are booting off the included Acronis True Image rescue disk. So I created my own BART PE boot disk with plugins for True Image and Disk director.

I've bought all the newest versions, up to 11 I think now, but never needed to use them as version 9, along with the BART PE boot disk, does eveything I need.

 

Some may ask why do I bother buying the newer versions. Simple, just in case I think I might need it and to support the company. Some day I'm going to have a newer PC with a newer OS that TI 9 isn't going to work on.

I also buy the newest versions of Perfect Disk, a disk defragmenter program, but I'm still using version 7 of that.

[farnz]

Ed,

 

I'm using a creaky 6-year old pc with Norton Ghost (hate Norton, hate Norton, hate Norton) and it's time to retire it - although I've had few problems so far(phew!) so I'm looking for a way to take an image of my main HDD so I can buy a new pc and back up my image onto the new HDD. Can TI do this seamlessly do you think? I guess that XP will get a bit grumpy about being dumped into new hardware home but it should sort itself out so others tell me. (I have no interest in Vista until MS sorts it out - 2028 perhaps? )

 

Pete.

[Shootist]

Ed,

 

I'm using a creaky 6-year old pc with Norton Ghost (hate Norton, hate Norton, hate Norton) and it's time to retire it - although I've had few problems so far(phew!) so I'm looking for a way to take an image of my main HDD so I can buy a new pc and back up my image onto the new HDD. Can TI do this seamlessly do you think? I guess that XP will get a bit grumpy about being dumped into new hardware home but it should sort itself out so others tell me. (I have no interest in Vista until MS sorts it out - 2028 perhaps? )

 

Pete.

 

Pete what you need to do is do a Repair Install at FIRST BOOT of the new PC once you have loaded the image from the old PC on the drive of the new PC. But then the new PC will have newer hardware that XP, any version or service pack, won't have drivers for or the chipset drivers.

It will be hit and miss. Honestly I seriously doubt it will work.

 

Yes True Image can do that. Image the older PC and put it on a external HDD. Connect the external HDD to the new PC and boot off of the TI rescue disk and then load that image on the new PC.

 

But first I would make a image of the NEW PC on a external drive just incase you can't get the old OS working then you can load the original image on the new PC.

 

In all honesty I've done this but it was with a older PC then were the image came from. I still did a Repair install at first boot and that PC is still running that image to this day, that was about 3.5 years ago.

[farnz]

Thanks, Ed, for the very useful information for when I bite the bullet.

 

I've side-tracked too much already so it's time to let this thread get back on topic. Apologies to the OP

 

Pete.

[stephan_w]

@stephanw:

Yes, I could do that.....for each of my 8900 files...could take a while. I had the hope that after telling LR where ONE file is, it would be looking for the other missing files on the same drive....but LR doesn´t seem to like the idea.

Any other option?

 

I did this also till I noticed that it is just to time-consuming.

 

yes, or just copy your old catalogue to the new harddrive. when LR shows you that the links are broken, indicate the new location of the file.

 

I mean that when you move the index files of LR (if I remember, there are three files) to a new location (other hard drive), then starting up LR gives a message "index file not found". If you copied your index file on the new hard disk where your photos are, and idicate this to LR, then LR find the files. At least for me it worked.