Messed up my LR6 Library

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Souwalker

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Location
Sydney, Australia
Operating System:windows 10
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info):6.0 [1014445]
Hello, I messed up pretty bad.
I needed to get some hard drive space and I moved my enitre 'Lightroom' folder which has all my backups and catalogs to another drive (E) in my computer. You guessed it. I opended LR and nothing. I copied back contents of that folder back into my C drive Lightroom folder but I think the damage is already done.
upload_2018-1-4_20-27-36.png

As you can see from my above screenshot, pictres all grey and there is a '?' on the left.
upload_2018-1-4_20-29-17.png

The above is a screenshot of where my catalogs are sitting. The above is the original location whihc I copied back everything into the above folder.

I desperately need help to find which is the correct catalog and how to resolve this self inflicted mess.

Desparately yours Pat
 
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Did you just move the catalog folder, or also the pictures? It seems to me you also moved the pictures to the E drive. Lightroom is still looking for them on the C drive. This kind of problem is easy to fix, but we first need to know.
 
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JohanElzenga said:
Did you just move the catalog folder, or also the pictures? It seems to me you also moved the pictures to the E drive. Lightroom is still looking for them on the C drive. This kind of problem is easy to fix, but we first need to know.
Click to expand...
I just moved the catalogue folder. Pictures still remain on my E drive where they were always there.
Thanks
 
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Souwalker said:
I just moved the catalogue folder. Pictures still remain on my E drive where they were always there.
Click to expand...
According to your screenshot, that is not where Lightroom thinks they are. Lightroom says they are on your C drive, that's why it can't find them.

Do the following: Right-click on one of the missing folders and choose 'Show Parent Folder'. You may have to do this more than once. The goal is that Lightroom will show you a folder hierarchy, with a single (missing) top folder. Then right-click on that top folder and choose 'Find Missing Folder'. You'll get a standard 'open' dialog. With that dialog, navigate to the folder on your E drive and select it. Done. You may have to restart Lightroom before everything shows correctly.
 
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JohanElzenga said:
According to your screenshot, that is not where Lightroom thinks they are. Lightroom says they are on your C drive, that's why it can't find them.

Do the following: Right-click on one of the missing folders and choose 'Show Parent Folder'. You may have to do this more than once. The goal is that Lightroom will show you a folder hierarchy, with a single (missing) top folder. Then right-click on that top folder and choose 'Find Missing Folder'. You'll get a standard 'open' dialog. With that dialog, navigate to the folder on your E drive and select it. Done. You may have to restart Lightroom before everything shows correctly.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I just did a few samples and only a few displays whilst the rest are still blank.
Thanks
Pat
upload_2018-1-4_22-32-28.png
 
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Just ignore that. Lightroom is still looking for 3095 images on your C drive, while you say they are on the E drive. That is why the folders still show as 'missing' and why Lightroom can't generate previews for them. It needs the images to generate the previews. Just follow my instructions all the way through. You're only half way now.
 
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JohanElzenga said:
Just ignore that. Lightroom is still looking for 3095 images on your C drive, while you say they are on the E drive. That is why the folders still show as 'missing' and why Lightroom can't generate previews for them. It needs the images to generate the previews. Just follow my instructions all the way through. You're only half way now.
Click to expand...
Cool thanks
I too deleted all my preset folders in a particular directory to reclaim some
Space I forgot I had LR pointing to those folders. Now I see the preset names on
My right pane but all greyed Out. I suppose I need to find those presets online and reinstall them, correct?
Thanks
 
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Hi Johan
I am slowing right clicking each folder within a year with a '?' and pointing to the same folder name on E drive. I am assumming the New Volume (E) highlighted in yellow is actually my E drive where all my pictures are. How come there are no hiearchy?
I've completed 2009 and have started 2010 but I dont see my year hierarchy? I recall before I self-created this mess, I had the hieracrchy or was I dreaming? :)
Regards
Pat

upload_2018-1-5_16-17-29.png
 
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If you want to see the hierarchy on the E drive, then right-click on one of the folders and choose 'Show Parent Folder'. Do it again with this parent folder if necessary.

You are making life more difficult than it should be by not following my instructions to the letter. What you are doing right now is not wrong, but unnecessary extra work. Do you have a single parent folder on the E drive? If so, you should be able to 'reconnect' all the folders at once by using 'Find Missing Folder' on the 'My Pictures' folder. If not, then at least you could 'reconnect' per year folder. The subfolders will automatically reconnect too. That is how I told you do do this. I said:
JohanElzenga said:
Then right-click on that top folder and choose 'Find Missing Folder'.
Click to expand...

If you do that now, you may get a warning about existing folders and the question if you want to merge them. Just click 'Merge'.
 
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Hi Johan

JohanElzenga said:
If you want to see the hierarchy on the E drive, then right-click on one of the folders and choose 'Show Parent Folder'. Do it again with this parent folder if necessary.
Click to expand...
Done, thanks
upload_2018-1-6_11-41-9.png


Ah, I see what you meant now. Just righ click the year and choose Find Missig folder, the point to the same year folder on my E drive.....
I thught you meant the subfolders under the year......thats why it was takig me an eternity :)
Regards
Pat
 
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As none of your screenshots shows these folders, I assume that you have somehow deleted these from the catalog. You could import them again, but that makes you lose their edits. Do you have an older catalog backup that may still contain them?
 
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Thanks Pat; you have made me feel a lot better knowing I'm not the only :(
There are times Lr library can be the true living :devil:
Time to delete half the :poop: anyway :laugh:
 
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