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Moving Lightroom Catalog from One external drive to another

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VickiB

New Member
Joined
Sep 20, 2016
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17
Lightroom Experience
Intermediate
Lightroom Version
Lightroom Version Number
Lightroom Version 9.2.1
Operating System
  1. Windows 10
Hi i have been trying to do this for a few weeks now ( with time of for two petsitting gigs)
so i am working on a Windows 10 desktop with LR version 9.2.1 on a 2 TB external drive (G) and want to move to a 5 TB external drive (E).
I have copied and pasted my raw files from within LR to the new drive and copied Lightroom Catalog over also
when I open lightroom It shows both drives there but is using the G drive as shown in photo.
Even when i tell lightroom to use Drive E it looks like this picture .
The 2nd picture attached (cleverly named 2nd pic) is the Lightroom folder on the G 2TB drive i have been using and what i copied over to the new drive.


Help Victoria!! LOL



i am not going to update Lightroom until this is sorted out

Vicki
 

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You need to ‘relink’ Lightroom to the new drive location. Right-click on the ‘Vickis Pictures’ top folder in the folder panel, and choose ‘Update Folder Location’. Select the corresponding folder on the new drive in the dialog that follows.
 
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Okay , all my photos are coming up in LR under the correct E drive now. I restarted LR and
It is still showing G drive as the one to use on startup and the one that is showing in Catalog preferences.

should i unplug the G drive and see what happens

thanks for getting me this far!
 

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In your second screenshot you can see that Lightroom is still set to open the catalog on the G drive. Start Lightroom once by double clicking the catalog file on the E drive. Then go to this preference again and change the preferred catalog to the one that is now open, or set this to ‘most recent catalog’.
 
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Hi Johan , when i go to the lightroom catalog on the E drive to open, it opens lightroom and it is still showing as the G drive and there is no E drive even showing . If i click on the lightroom icon it opens showing that it is on E
drive but G is showing as the catalog with E not even there . Picture attached of that. Clearly i have done something wrong copying the Catalog from G to E . but not sure what to do about it .
Vicki
 

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Johan Elzenga said:
In your second screenshot you can see that Lightroom is still set to open the catalog on the G drive. Start Lightroom once by double clicking the catalog file on the E drive. Then go to this preference again and change the preferred catalog to the one that is now open, or set this to ‘most recent catalog’.
Click to expand...
UPDATE** I unplugged my G drive and tried opening LR via the icon and clicking on the catalog file on the E drive. both times when LR opens it doesnt show the E drive at all just the G drive with of course no pictures because the drive is not plugged in .
so when i started this , i copied the whole lightroom file highlighted on the left half of the picture from G to E , the actual catalog that i have been using is highlighted on the right .

i am wondering if i should just reinstall LR from the adobe site on drive E ?
 

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VickiB said:
UPDATE** I unplugged my G drive and tried opening LR via the icon and clicking on the catalog file on the E drive. both times when LR opens it doesnt show the E drive at all just the G drive with of course no pictures because the drive is not plugged in .
so when i started this , i copied the whole lightroom file highlighted on the left half of the picture from G to E , the actual catalog that i have been using is highlighted on the right .

i am wondering if i should just reinstall LR from the adobe site on drive E ?
Click to expand...
The catalog on the E drive is probably an older copy, from before you relinked the images. Replace it by a copy of the catalog from the G drive and try again.
 
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So I think I got it! Fingers crossed!
So my next step will be to back up that up.
Then delete the old one after I use LR on the new drive for a bit!
Thank you so much for all your help Johan, I appreciate it so much!

Vicki
PS: if there is anything I am missing that I should be doing ........ ?
 
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