Joe, I've had a chance to review your folder listings. For reasons that I can't explain, none of them actually gave a complete listing. I have run this same command on my most extensive drive and it runs to completion showing over 344,000 directories and over 800,000 lines of text. Still, I think I have enough to make some recommendations based upon my observations.
Earlier you gave me a list of your recently opened catalogs:
Code:
--H:\Lightroom 2 Catalog\Lightroom 3 Catalog.lrcat-
--C:\Users\Joe\Pictures\Lightroom Lightroom 3 Catalog.lrcat
This brings up another imponderable. In one of the screen shots of missing image files LR referenced a location: "C:\Users\Owner\Pictures\08 15 08"
Id there another user on your PC named "Owner" with a separate Pictures folder and perhaps a separate copy of the LR catalog? User "Joe" will not normally have access you user "Owner's" files. Or anything else in that users 'home folders'.
From the folder listings it also appears that you probably have Catalogs in:
Code:
-- H:\Lightroom
-- H:\Lightroom 2 Catalog
and of course this repeats in
Code:
-- F:\Lightroom
-- F:\Lightroom 2 Catalog
Also on H:\ there are folders H:\PHOTOS GO HERE and H:\Pictures. Since the folder listing are incomplete, I can only guess at the contents. Quite possibly there are Catalogs and additioonal duplicate images there too.
As for regular catalog backups, it appears that you have not run the LR backup since 2010-04-19 2149 (over a year ago).
In browsing your folder tree, I cam across entries like these:
Code:
Directory of H:\06 23 08
07/21/2011 08:57 AM <DIR> 2008 09 10
07/21/2011 08:57 AM <DIR> 2008 09 10 - Copy
07/21/2011 08:58 AM <DIR> 2008 09 12
07/21/2011 08:58 AM <DIR> 2008 09 12 - Copy
Code:
Directory of F:\06 23 08
09/25/2010 04:14 PM <DIR> 2008 09 10
06/07/2011 03:02 PM <DIR> 2008 09 10 - Copy
07/03/2010 08:39 AM <DIR> 2008 09 12
07/01/2010 08:18 PM <DIR> 2008 09 12 - Copy
From this I can only surmise that you not only have partially duplicated F:\ to H:\ but also at some time in the past, you managed to duplicate folder contents too. .
Before you can go too much further, you will need to rectify this multitude of duplicate image files scattered over three HDs. Now the question becomes, "What to do your your LR catalog(s)?" With 0ver 9000 missing files, it might be difficult to make sense of the catalog. If you start over, you will lose all your edits, keywords, collections, etc. If you do start over you can import into one of the default date named folder schemes and LR will not import duplicates if you have that checkbox checked and use copy to create a new folder structure so the the path/filename is always going to be unique.
If you want to recover your best catalog, then the only way I can think to do this would be for you to manually reconstruct and populate the folder structure that LR expects to use to find these master image files. It will not be a trivial task. With a copy of your catalog file "Lightroom 3 Catalog.lrcat" I can provide a listing of the the folders that LR want to have and it will be up to you to find those folders and place them in the proper position (using Windows Explorer) to reconstruct the proper folder tree. Even having done this, there will probably still be missing image files some may not be resolvable.
In Summary, you need to do the following:
- Perhaps clear up the User Mystery : Lightroom wants paths for user "Joe\Pictures" (i presume) and "Owner\Pictures"
- Choose which method you want to use to create a workable catalog for Lightroom
- Undergo a massive effort to declutter your image files, identify duplicates, isolate them and eventually delete them.
Let me know how you want to proceed.
On your last note, I don't know what is happening with your Drive G:\ Seagate Replica.. Some suggestions though. I don;t know how Seagate replica manages back ups or what you are attempting to back up. The Target Drive (G:\) might be full, Because of moves etc, Source folders might be exooected that are no longer there.
