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How can a catalog best be placed on a DVD?

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lbeck

Active Member
Joined
May 21, 2015
Messages
150
Location
Hillsborough, NC
Lightroom Experience
Intermediate
Lightroom Version
6.x
Lightroom Version Number
6.14
Operating System
  1. Windows 10
I'm wanting to archive a few parts of my large Lr catalog to DVDs, and then delete those photos from my HDD. I've parsed out a sub-set of my catalog to a DVD. A finalized DVD-R is not a writeable medium, so I figured that I could dump the entire contents to a folder on my PC. When I click on the lrcat file in the folder I get the error:

1569354922834.png


There also is a file lrcat-journal in the folder. Clicking on this file opens Lr with an empty catalog where I'm able to import the files from the folder with the dumped files from the DVD.

Are there any shortcuts to avoid DVD->folder->lrcat-journal->dump files from DVD to folder->import from DVD->work from DVD folder->erase folder when finished
 
I'd just like to suggest that in the long run splitting up catalogs almost always becomes more problem than solution. Obviously your needs and motivations may be different than others, but many people find over time that their solution becomes itself a problem. A single catalog can point to a LOT of images, very efficiently; it can have references to images both online and offline and keep up with them changing back and forth. It is rarely a good format for sharing with others, there are many that are better.

Just in the for what it's worth department... we now return control of this thread to the regularly scheduled discussion.
 
I'm wanting to archive a few parts of my large Lr catalog to DVDs, and then delete those photos from my HDD. I've parsed out a sub-set of my catalog to a DVD. A finalized DVD-R is not a writeable medium, so I figured that I could dump the entire contents to a folder on my PC. When I click on the lrcat file in the folder I get the error:

View attachment 13119

There also is a file lrcat-journal in the folder. Clicking on this file opens Lr with an empty catalog where I'm able to import the files from the folder with the dumped files from the DVD.

Are there any shortcuts to avoid DVD->folder->lrcat-journal->dump files from DVD to folder->import from DVD->work from DVD folder->erase folder when finished

In answer to your original question, what you probably have here is a file permissions problem. When copying files from a DVD to a local computer they are usually copied as read only. That means when the files are copied from the DVD to the computer you need to right click on the file and select "Properties" (down at the bottom) then on the "General" tab under "Attributes" take away the check mark by "Read-only".

One question I would ask is why are you using DVDs? This is a medium that is fairly inflexible, has a potentially limited shelf life and a very limited size. If you are still considering splitting up your catalog then you might want to consider using a (good quality) flash drive or external hard drive for your second copy (and naturally you will make a back up of that, right???). Then you definitely don't have the problem of write-protection or having to copy the file somewhere else before use. And if you use a large enough external HDD or flash drive then you have the space to store the pictures you want to take off your hard drive in the same place (though not in the same folder) as your catalog.

The other issue is as others have mentioned here... why split up the catalog at all? Mine is currently at 50,000 and counting and is only about 1.3GB in size. It's on an internal SSD and runs quite quickly. I love having everything at my fingertips.
 
Here is what I am trying to orchestrate
I asked earlier. What version of Lightroom are you running? LR6.14 which is a perpetual legacy version and not being updated? Lightroom (formerly Lightroom CC) that requires a cloud based implementation? Or Lightroom Classic which has all of the functionality of the older versions of Lightroom and all of the current feature set.?
 
This is a great forum and I appreciate all of the information from each of you. I'm not ready to address the technical issues like looking at my Windows settings, though I'm pretty sure that my original catalog is not read-only. But for the other comments - and I do appreciate the advice - some are preferences.

I am using 6.14 Perpetual.

DVDs may become obsolete but they do appear to be the most stable of the options that I have available. I already have lost a couple of HDDs and one USB thumb drive. I have found some DVD blanks to be not recordable but I have several hundred burned DVDs and haven't lost any of those yet. But my paranoia has caused me to provide duplicates to family and others to e.g., weddings, births, trips, special events, etc. If my DVD becomes kaput I can always request a copy and duplicate. Distributing EHDs or USB drives is a little more problematic.

This is not a rebuttal but only reasoning for my approach. I'll continue to entertain other opinions and I'll look into settings that may have created the error message shown in my original post.
 
It doesn't matter that your original catalogue is not read-only--the one on the DVD gets marked that way by the operating system when you copy it to the optical disc.I think it was pointed out in the other thread that copying a file from a DVD to a hard disc carries the "read-only" attribute with the file. You aren't going to be able to use those restored catalogues without removing that attribute.
 
DVDs may become obsolete but they do appear to be the most stable of the options that I have available. I already have lost a couple of HDDs and one USB thumb drive. I have found some DVD blanks to be not recordable but I have several hundred burned DVDs and haven't lost any of those yet. .

DVDs have an impermanence too. The material embedded in the plastic substrate can deteriorate and flake off making the data unreadable of simply lost.

https://blog.storagecraft.com/data-storage-lifespan/

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
It doesn't matter that your original catalogue is not read-only--the one on the DVD gets marked that way by the operating system when you copy it to the optical disc.I think it was pointed out in the other thread that copying a file from a DVD to a hard disc carries the "read-only" attribute with the file. You aren't going to be able to use those restored catalogues without removing that attribute.
Thanks, Hal. It seems that what you say is the root of my problem. I may still use the DVD option and just deal with the inconvenience of removing the read-only attribute after copying the files from my DVD to a HDD. This is an archival process, though, so I doubt that I'll do the transfer very often if at all.
DVDs have an impermanence too. The material embedded in the plastic substrate can deteriorate and flake off making the data unreadable of simply lost.
So there's no one perfect answer that satisfies all preferences.

Thanks to all for your comments.

Lee
 
Thanks, Hal. It seems that what you say is the root of my problem. I may still use the DVD option and just deal with the inconvenience of removing the read-only attribute after copying the files from my DVD to a HDD. This is an archival process, though, so I doubt that I'll do the transfer very often if at all.
So there's no one perfect answer that satisfies all preferences.

Thanks to all for your comments.

Lee
ibeck,

You would best serve yourself by getting a large-enough HDD. Here is a good starting point. New, 4/5 eggs, Western Digital, Desktop External Hard Drives, Hard Drives, Components - Newegg.com Stick with Western Digital brand drives. All these drives are rated well by customers.
 
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