Entire catalog gone, over and over again

[BartonG]

I got started on Lightroom using a HP Vista computer that was horribly slow. I had an 8K catalog I kept on three external drives. My old computer had this weird HP software that kept duplicating image files and stashing them different places, so I got the external drives and stopped pulling images on to the C drive. I bought a new 64 bit 8G quad core windows 7 computer that is much faster, not like the evil Vista system that I had to defrag twice a day. I used the easy transfer cable to bring all my other files across without many problems, and reloaded Photoshop and Lightroom. I got the catalog over, then Lightroom which seems to have been set up by default to grab any image file it saw pulled in 14,''' images that the easy transfer cable pulled over, and made a catalog. All my collections were gone, but I had a catalog. Then it disappeared. No matter what I try it can't see the disks and associate them with the old or new catalog. 14,''' blank images, hundreds of grayed out folders with question marks.

Maybe because the new computer gave them new letter names, or maybe because the product is not that well designed, or maybe I am just not smart enough to make this work, but if I had seen this coming I would have never bought lightroom. Does Adobe make products for those of us who are not that smart? I'm thinking of just buying 8gig flash cards instead of storing pictures in the computer, they are getting cheap and nothing else seems to work worth a damn. Film was a hell of a lot easier.

Just what does LR do if if can't keep track of files??? It gets confused too easily. Why can the windows search function on the desktop find files in seconds and LR lose every image in my catalog, when they are right there???????? Even i can see them. You are in sad shape when a microsoft product can outperform specialty software without trying. I've been conned.

 

[dj_paige]

My guess is that your drive letters changed. That would account for the symptoms you see.

If that is the case, you can right-click on the folder name (on the Left side of the Lightroom screen, in the Folder Panel) and select Update Folder Location and point it to the proper drive and location.

 

[clee01l]

Paige has most likely nailed it. And if you plugin the USB drives in a different sequence, the drive letters can change again. The solution to this is to give each USB drive a unique volume name and assign them to something far away from Letters that Windows would likely pick Whe you plugin a USB drive, Windows assigns the next available Drive letter. SO, your Drives are probably lettered E:\, F:\ etc. If you assign them to A:\ & B:\ instead, Windows will never reuse thos letters unless you install a floppy. You can aslo Start at Z:\ and work backwards down the alphabet. LR stores pointers to the file locations in it's database catalog. If those pointers are suddenly wrong because something changed them outside of LR, Only you can help LR Starighten out the mess. Also, If you store your primary catalog on the Local drivev (C:\) LR can find your catalog even if the Drive letter of the USB drive suddenly changes.

BTW, Vista was not evil, It suffered from bad press and being sold on machines with 1-2GB RAM. Win7 (or OSX for that matter) would probably behave poorly too if it had to perform in that same limited environment. Even with your new machine, you need to cleanse from it all the OEM & 'helper' crap that gets installed to run at startup and in the background.

 

[BartonG]

thanks for the suggestions, I'll try those. If Adobe is listening in my opinion this is a near fatal flaw. Or they need to get smarter customers.

How can you tell which programs are OEM nonsense? HP has those in droves, auto-updates, image management, printer stuff, it is beyond annoying. I worry I'll remove something important and won't be able to start the computer. I have no idea what half the programs do, and I can't tell by the names.

 

[clee01l]

[quote author=BartonG link=topic=891'.msg59924#msg59924 date=12634'1278]
thanks for the suggestions, I'll try those. If Adobe is listening in my opinion this is a near fatal flaw. Or they need to get smarter customers.
[/quote]In spite of your current opinion of LR, it is very well written and very well thought out. My recommendation to new LR users is that the Very Last thing you want to do when starting out is Import photos. Considerable time should be spent learning the LR concepts setting up Keywords etc. Also before you do anything major, find a forum like this one and ask questions. You are not exploring new territory when you do things like switch computers. There are many people here that can tell you what the 'Gotchas" might be before you jump in. For instance, about a month ago I made the same switch from a 32 bit HP Vista to a 64bit HP Win 7 computer. I also used the Easy Transfer and except for installing a 64bit version of LR, LR is exactly the same and except for the performace boost with more Cores and more RAM, I could not tell you which computer I am on with LR.

How can you tell which programs are OEM nonsense? HP has those in droves, auto-updates, image management, printer stuff, it is beyond annoying. I worry I'll remove something important and won't be able to start the computer. I have no idea what half the programs do, and I can't tell by the names.

I can help with this some, but it is not a trivial answer and probably belongs in the "Lounge" or "Equipment Talk" discussion as a separate topic.

 

[sizzlingbadger]

[quote author=BartonG link=topic=891'.msg59924#msg59924 date=12634'1278]
thanks for the suggestions, I'll try those. If Adobe is listening in my opinion this is a near fatal flaw. Or they need to get smarter customers.
[/quote]

It's not Adobes fault, its a flaw with the way Windows works.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Barton, chill. We'll get you sorted, don't worry.

You haven't been conned - it's just a powerful tool and needs to be used the right way. Chain saws are great for chopping down trees but very dangerous if you've never been told how to use it. Little hacksaws won't do you too much damage but won't easily chop down a tree either. So let us help you learn to use the chainsaw.

Now, you said "I got the catalog over" ... what makes you say that? Did the catalog appear with all the correct pictures? Have you still got the catalog from the old computer? Do you still have access to the old computer? We could save you a whole heap of headaches if we could go back a step.

 

[sizzlingbadger]

[quote author=Victoria Bampton link=topic=891'.msg59954#msg59954 date=1263418143]
it's just a powerful tool and needs to be used the right way. Chain saws are great for chopping down trees but very dangerous if you've never been told how to use it. Little hacksaws won't do you too much damage but won't easily chop down a tree either. So let us help you learn to use the chainsaw.
[/quote]

I love your quote... going to steal that one !

 

[Victoria Bampton]

LOL No need to steal... I'll give it to you with my compliments!