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Gathering across multiple hard drives

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Ewokchef

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Jan 23, 2016
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33
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Fishers, suburb of Indy, Indiana, US
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Lightroom Version Number
Classic 7.4
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  1. Windows 10
I apologize if this has been answered elsewhere. I looked for it but couldn't find anything similar although I'm sure others have struggled with it.. I have photos scattered over 3 internal hard drives, 1 external and now a laptop. I've been trying to find and import all of them. I have lots of duplicates and lots of frustration. In an attempt to see how widespread the files/photos are I ran a "search" through my whole desktop (not the laptop) for nef files. It found 194K + items! I'm not a full-time professional photographer so this is obviously crazy but shows how bad my structure is. Can I do anything with these files from where they were found during the search?

I would like to import all of my photos into the 4TB external hard drive. The goal being to be able to work on the laptop and the desktop. Any suggestions, plans, outlines would be so appreciated. Or if someone can point me to a previous answer that would help that would be great.

I did try to search in the ebook for some terms but I am not finding a solution. Anyone help? TIA.
 
Only if the box is checked in Preferences, otherwise it treats the JPG as a sidecar to the raw.
True - I wasn't specific here. But I believe that LR will find both files and move them to the hard drive, where the Win File Explorer will recognize two seperate files.
 
Hi again, Jim. A new issue. My desktop stopped working and I was forced to do a hard restart. :( I have no idea what damage that caused, if any. I am showing 78219 photos in the To Be Sorted Folder. I"m hoping that means that I have those to work with to put in the structure that I wanted. I guess I won't know until I start working in LR again to see if there were files that were corrupted by doing that hard restart. In looking in Properties of 'to be sorted', it shows the same as it did earlier this afternoon: 384 GB, 90,310 files and 1328 folders.

I do have a computer guy that can run through the hard drive(s) and make sure everything is okay, if you would advise that. Otherwise I'll just start going through them and see what I have? You have been so much help! I hope it's all where it's supposed to be... Any further advice is welcome, of course.
 
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Is your LR Catalog on the external drive? If so, that should be ok. But if I were you I would be sure to make a second back up copy of it onto another drive, such as your laptop.

In the LR Library, select "All Photographs" (upper left) then along the top of the window select Metadata. The first WIndow will show them sorted by date.
Start looking through them and think about how you may want to start filing them away.
There are many options open to you.
I think the most straightforward will be to sort them into folders by month and year.
 
Hi again, Jim. A new issue. My desktop stopped working and I was forced to do a hard restart. :(I have no idea what damage that caused, if any. I am showing 78219 photos in the To Be Sorted Folder. I"m hoping that means that I have those to work with to put in the structure that I wanted. I guess I won't know until I start working in LR again to see if there were files that were corrupted by doing that hard restart. In looking in Properties of 'to be sorted', it shows the same as it did earlier this afternoon: 384 GB, 90,310 files and 1328 folders.

I do have a computer guy that can run through the hard drive(s) and make sure everything is okay, if you would advise that. Otherwise I'll just start going through them and see what I have? You have been so much help! I hope it's all where it's supposed to be... Any further advice is welcome, of course.

Ewok,

I suggest that you start LR and then quit, and selecting the options to optimize and then back up the LR catalog. I hope that you have been backing up the catalog frequently, at least once a day.
 
Hi again, Jim. A new issue. My desktop stopped working and I was forced to do a hard restart. :(I have no idea what damage that caused, if any. I am showing 78219 photos in the To Be Sorted Folder. I"m hoping that means that I have those to work with to put in the structure that I wanted. I guess I won't know until I start working in LR again to see if there were files that were corrupted by doing that hard restart. In looking in Properties of 'to be sorted', it shows the same as it did earlier this afternoon: 384 GB, 90,310 files and 1328 folders.

I do have a computer guy that can run through the hard drive(s) and make sure everything is okay, if you would advise that. Otherwise I'll just start going through them and see what I have? You have been so much help! I hope it's all where it's supposed to be... Any further advice is welcome, of course.

As Phil said check the verify catalog button when you restart Lightroom or if it opens immediately quit and check the "Test integrity before backing up". If it doesnt offer the backup option then start again and go to the catalog settings and select to backup everytime you exit Lightroom.

I would not proceed until you get a good backup with a tested catalog.

Next I would want to see a screen shot of the Folders panel with the "To Be Sorted Folder" expanded. I am want to see exactly how that is organized at this point. I am concerned that you have put all 78K images into one folder. If so that is going to stress your desktop (external drive).

Please get that done and we will continue from there.

-louie
 
I have been backing up the catalog regularly and it is in my external hard drive. The catalog setting show that it is in there. I can take a screenshot of the "tobe sorted" folder. And yes I have put all the images into that one folder from the one internal hard drive labeled in my system as G. I have two more internal drives which I yet need to copy from. This is a snip of the way I want to organize the folder system:
1532457383220.png

This is some of the "to be sorted" for the one year. Fully expanded is too big to copy because the years go back forever:
1532457631545.png
 
Jim, to respond to your suggestion re catalog backup on my laptop--the drives from laptop and desktop are not connected at this point. Also I can't locate the "all photographs" spot, although I do know how to sort using metadata.
 
A couple of thoughts.
You seem to be in great shape. Now you have work cut out for you, especially if you want all the folders to look like what you showed for 2018.
But it should be straightforward.
When I started a kewording project like this, I just worked a little bit at a time, and worked backwards in time.

If the folder structure came over like you show it, then all you need to do is drag a folder (using Lightroom) from "to be sorted" to your final top level folder "Photos go here".

You would also save yourself a lot of work in renaming the folders if you simply keyword all the photos. You will want to do this eventually anyway, so you might as well do it as you organize. For instance, I see you have a folder called Easter. SImply add that keyword to all the photos in the appropriate folder when you look at them. Then drag them into the appropriate year folder in "Photos go here".

I would also not tackle the other internal drives until you get this one in good shape.

Do you have room on the first internal drive now to back up the "to be sorted" file and the "Photos go here", and your catalog?
If so, I would do that before you start moving the folders around on the external.
Then back them all up every night.
 
I have been backing up the catalog regularly and it is in my external hard drive. The catalog setting show that it is in there. I can take a screenshot of the "tobe sorted" folder. And yes I have put all the images into that one folder from the one internal hard drive labeled in my system as G. I have two more internal drives which I yet need to copy from. This is a snip of the way I want to organize the folder system: View attachment 11200
This is some of the "to be sorted" for the one year. Fully expanded is too big to copy because the years go back forever: View attachment 11202

Hi,

Ok I see that you are using a date based folder structure for your imports into "To Be Sorted" folder. I was concerned that perhaps you putting all the images in to one single folder but that is not the case.

I would suggest that you try to figure out some strategy to process smaller chunks of images going forward with the remaining hard drives. You risk additional LR crashes and each one has the potential to corrupt you catalog.

Also DO NOT erase ANY of your source images until the entire process of moving to the new external drive is completed and to be completely honest the new hard drive is completely backed up to another 4GB drive. One poor soul came here not to long ago and had deleted his source images as he consolidated onto a new large hard drive. Right at the end the new target drive failed and he ended up loosing his entire image collection. I know that cost is a factor but consider the risk.

-louie
 
Hi,

Ok I see that you are using a date based folder structure for your imports into "To Be Sorted" folder. I was concerned that perhaps you putting all the images in to one single folder but that is not the case.

I would suggest that you try to figure out some strategy to process smaller chunks of images going forward with the remaining hard drives. You risk additional LR crashes and each one has the potential to corrupt you catalog.

Also DO NOT erase ANY of your source images until the entire process of moving to the new external drive is completed and to be completely honest the new hard drive is completely backed up to another 4GB drive. One poor soul came here not to long ago and had deleted his source images as he consolidated onto a new large hard drive. Right at the end the new target drive failed and he ended up loosing his entire image collection. I know that cost is a factor but consider the risk.

-louie

Louie and Jim, I will definitely pull smaller chunks! I actually didn't know (although I should have) that that drive was the one containing the most photos. I can get another new hard drive by next Wednesday for sure but hopefully before. I may need to ask how to implement the backup but hopefully I can figure it out. When I am transferring from one drive to the other, I have been using the right-click command under Photos go here>year> new folder> move selected pictures into new folder. Does that sound right?

I have to tell you that I am SO excited and pleased with how this is working. And scared because it is so easy! (Fear of doing it wrong, looms large!) I was able to move all of 2017 into new folders yesterday. I don't have words for how much I appreciate your help!

I do have cloud backup on Google photos for what it's worth and everything backed up by Carbonite. I also have most of my original memory cards going back many years, for what they are worth. I'm a bit of a hoarder anyway and have been afraid to re-use very often. My plan for today was to delete duplicate and bad photos, something that is needed badly.
Sharon
 
....
I can get another new hard drive by next Wednesday for sure but hopefully before. I may need to ask how to implement the backup but hopefully I can figure it out. When I am transferring from one drive to the other, I have been using the right-click command under Photos go here>year> new folder> move selected pictures into new folder. Does that sound right?
......
I do have cloud backup on Google photos for what it's worth and everything backed up by Carbonite. I also have most of my original memory cards going back many years, for what they are worth. I'm a bit of a hoarder anyway and have been afraid to re-use very often.......
Sharon

Well, I am glad to hear it is going so well.
As for backing things up, this is a whole new story. If you ask 5 people how they do it or what they recommend, you will probably get 7 different approaches.
Cloud backup is very good, but not sufficient. That gives you a good off-site backup.
Many of us have at least two external hardrives with backups. Most of us some sort of software to actually produce the backup, and do it on a regular basis.
There are multiple suppliers of software you can use for backup.
Since I am retired, and losing a file would not be a tragedy, but an inconvenience, I no longer do incremental backups (ie, keeping multiple versions of a changed file). Others do.
I just want a mirror image of my important data folders out on my backup drives.
I now use a paid package called Allway Sync. It works for me, as it only backs up files that have changed which saves time. I use it daily.
You may find it a bit cumbersome, maybe not. There are many other alternatives.
Most new drives also come with something.

And once you have another external drive as a backup, you can reuse your camera cards.
 
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