• Welcome to the Lightroom Queen Forums! We're a friendly bunch, so please feel free to register and join in the conversation. If you're not familiar with forums, you'll find step by step instructions on how to post your first thread under Help at the bottom of the page. You're also welcome to download our free Lightroom Quick Start eBooks and explore our other FAQ resources.
  • Stop struggling with Lightroom! There's no need to spend hours hunting for the answers to your Lightroom Classic questions. All the information you need is in Adobe Lightroom Classic - The Missing FAQ!

    To help you get started, there's a series of easy tutorials to guide you through a simple workflow. As you grow in confidence, the book switches to a conversational FAQ format, so you can quickly find answers to advanced questions. And better still, the eBooks are updated for every release, so it's always up to date.

Changing to a new external hard drive from an existing one.

Status
Not open for further replies.
D

Dave Mitchell

New Member
Joined
Sep 6, 2011
Messages
11
Lightroom Experience
Beginner
Lightroom Version
Lightroom Classic version: 10.4 [ 202108071231-af9219b9 ]
Operating System
  1. macOS 11 Big Sur
Hi folks,
I am hoping for some advice as to how to change my main Lightroom folder to a new external drive. I know that this should be straightforward but I have made some terrible mistakes in the past and am hoping that someone can walk me through the process. I have tried to follow tutorials online but my system seems to struggle.
My situation is as follows -
I am using Lightroom Classic ( CC )
I current have my main folder containing all my images on an external hard drive
My catalogue is stored on the computer in the Pictures folder ( I am using an iMac )
I have purchased a new LaCie desktop external drive and would like to use that for day to day use.
I would like to use the existing drive as a back up device only.
I have copied and pasted the entire existing drive to the new one, including the main Lightroom folder. The two drives should be identical.
I would then like to clone the two drives as a backup system when it is functioning correctly.

I have tried simply adding a new folder and pointing it to the new main folder on the new drive, but something just did not seem right so I cancelled that.
I could really use some expert advice so that I don't repeat the mistakes of the past ( don't even ask ) !!

I appreciate any help in advance.
Cheers,
Dave.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
If- Your new drive is an exact 'Clone' of the old drive, in folder structure AND Disk Name (D: E: F: etc), you should not need to do anything other than unplug the old drive and plug in the new drive. Then Lightroom should identify it as the 'same' drive and continue to operate normally.

You seem to have done the 'Move' as in the "Option-Two" of this article from Victoria- Have a read.
MOVING PHOTOS- 2 Methods

There is NO NEED to "add a new folder". You only need the 'cloned' folders in the same structure.
If LrC shows the folders as 'missing' -You simply re-link as per instructions in Step#4 in the OPTION-TWO instructions.
Do NOT IMPORT anything! NO IMPORTING.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Rob_Cullen said:
If- Your new drive is an exact 'Clone' of the old drive, in folder structure AND Disk Name (D: E: F: etc), you should not need to do anything other than unplug the old drive and plug in the new drive. Then Lightroom should identify it as the 'same' drive and continue to operate normally…..
Click to expand...
There are no drive letters in MacOS. The user will need to name the new volume with the same name as the old volume, remove or rename the old volume and reboot.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top