Hard Drive Issue - Windows

[Howard Routledge]

I have had my new computer for only a few months and it has two drives, a 250GB SSD and a 1TB HDD; this is my first experience with an SSD. The SSD is C Drive and I have had all of my folders within 'my pictures' installed on that drive. The SSD was nearly full when I came to download further images and Lightroom wouldn't open until sufficient room had been made available on the C drive. The HDD was empty. I was under the false impression that once the C drive was full, the HDD drive would automatically kick in - obviously not. To try and find a solution, 2 folders were moved from 'My pictures' into the HDD on E drive. This resulted in room being made available on the SSD but LR now shows the 2 folders as 'missing'. I would like to have all folders within 'my pictures' to be on the E drive for obvious reasons - how do I achieve that with LR recognising their existence there?

I have included a screen shot of my LR catalog which explains the situation probably much better than my description of the problem. The latest file that I had problems downloading, is shown within the E drive. I'm not sure how that occurred, as by default, my downloads have always gone onto the C Drive. What is also apparent in the screen shot is the 'greyed' images that had previously been deleted.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

To get Lightroom to use the 'missing' folders on the other drive, right-click on the folder name and choose 'Find Missing Folder'. In the 'Open' dialog that follows, navigate to the new disk and select the folder. Lightroom will now show it under the new E: drive, and it will disapear from under the C: drive.

For the other folders on the C: drive, you can follow the same procedure. Copy them to the new disk, then tell Lightroom where they are. Because they will not be missing in this case, you won't see a menu item 'Find Missing Folder', but instead 'Update Folder Location'. After you've done that, you can delete the copies from the C: drive.

 

[Gnits]

1. Right click on the folders with the missing flag and select option to Update the folder location.

2. When you import you have choices as to where you want to copy / move the images if on a card.

3. If you are going to start storing images on your E drive, it would be a good idea to create a master high level folder(named something like MyLightroomImages) and ensure you import into subfolders of the master folder. This will faciliate ongoing maintenance, backups, etc..

In this case, I would first create my master images folder on E, then move the two folders into this and finally use "Right Click / Update Folder" option in Lr to re connect everything.

I suggest at that stage we deal with any residual issues (such as the reference to deleted photos above.

 

[Gnits]

I should add .... if moving any other folders in future you should do so within Lr (using drag and drop), to avoid this scenario re-occuring.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

1. Right click on the folders with the missing flag and select option to Update the folder location.

If a folder is missing, 'Update Folder Location' is not available. As I explained, you have to use the 'Find Missing Folder' menu.

 

[Howard Routledge]

Thank you both for taking the time to reply. Johan, when I have done as you suggested, the folder has moved onto the E Drive but the images displayed within the film strip are greyed out and the library catalog is showing files missing. I am unable to open any of the images.
Gnits, when I R click on the 2 missing folders I am not getting 'update folder location' Only 3 options are displayed; Find Missing Folder, Remove, and Export this folder as a catalog.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Those folders are parent folders, with subfolders inside them. It's possible you moved the subfolders before you did the 'Find Missing Folder' action, so Lightroom can now find the parent folder but it is still missing the subfolders. Click on the little arrow in front of the name, to show the folder hierarchy. Then repeat the action for missing subfolders (I hope you know where you moved them to...).

 

[Howard Routledge]

5 0f the 12 subfolders have the arrow. When I have R clicked on one of them to find missing folder, I am taken to the E drive listing. At the bottom of this page there is a box highlighted asking 'select folder'. When I click on that I get a message 'The selected folder or one of its subfolders is already in LR. Do you wish to merge these folders?'
Has that to be clicked?

 

[Johan Elzenga]

If you are certain that this is indeed the new location of that 'missing' folder, then yes: click on it. What happened is that somehow you've already told Lightroom the new location of some of the images. So now Lightroom is confused: it assumed that these images are in 'another' location, and now you are telling Lightroom that this is a missing 'other' folder. So you are telling Lightroom that two folders it considered to be different folders are actually one and the same folder. That is possible, so there is no fundamental problem, but Lightroom needs you to confirm that.

 

[Howard Routledge]

Thanks for trying to help Johan but folders that have been moved onto the E drive are still not showing any images . Every folder/file is shown as missing. I dare not try and move any more folders until I sort the present situation.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

You clearly did not just move (copy) folders from one drive to another if the images inside those folders weren't moved/copied as well. You must have done something else, like moving images to different folders and/or moving subfolders out of the hierarchy. Quit Lightroom and check those folders in Windows Explorer. Look inside those folders (and other folders on that drive) to see if you can find the images. Posts more screenshots, so we can also see what on earh you have been doing.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

In the meantime I've taken another look at your first screenshot, and it appears that you have two (unrelated) problems:

The first problem is the one we've been concentration on so far. It's those two missing folders called 'Family photos etc' and 'Holidays'. These are no longer on the C: disk, so we assumed you copied them to the E: disk and explained how you can let Lightroom know where they are now. I'm not sure why that didn't work, except that these are parent folders (you can see that from the arrow in front of the name). The images are (apparently) in subfolders inside these parent folders (at least that is what Lightroom thinks), so there's a chance you moved those subfolders out of the parent folders when you copied the whole lot. That could explain why Lightroom can still not find the images. A screenshot of your E: disk showing all the folders might help. A screenshot of the Lightroom folder panel with the hierarchy clicked open (so we can see what subfolders are supposed to be inside them) is also necessary.

The second problem is that the folder called 'Poole 2016' on the E: disk is missing some images as well. Those are the images that do not have a thumbnail. I have no idea why these images are missing, because I have no idea where this folder comes from and what you've done with it. You did say "What is also apparent in the screen shot is the 'greyed' images that had previously been deleted", but I have no idea why you deleted these images. If you did that on purpose, you can simply delete them from the Lightroom catalog by pressing the Delete key.

 

[Howard Routledge]

The 2 folders that have been moved from the C drive are titled Holidays and Family. I have attached a screen shot of the E Drive shown within Explorer. The Holiday folder is still named as such and the Family folder is contained within 'Pictures' folder. When I open both folders they are complete. All of the sub folders are listed.
On the LR catalog list for E Drive, those folders are now contained in a master folder titled 'Lightroom Images' as suggested by Gnits.

 

[Howard Routledge]

The Poole file was the latest download that Lightroom refused to accept until I had made room within the near full c drive. Once I had moved the 2 files (Holiday & Family) to create the room, the download went ahead as normal but for some reason they didn't appear in the default C drive but landed in the E drive. The greyed out images are the ones already deleted by me when selecting which ones to retain.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

I'm sorry, but it seems you are utterly confused. You are talking about 'files' when you mean 'folders' and it seems that you are still moving folders around outside of Lightroom, causing Lightroom to lose track of these folders. So please read this carefully and follow this to the letter. If there is anything you don't understand, stop and ask first.

Lightroom shows a whole lot of folders it expects to be on the root of the E: drive, but it seems you've moved these folders once again. You stated that you've moved them into that 'Pictures' folder, so you have to use that 'Find Missing Folder' menu once again. Right-click on one of the missing folders, choose 'Find Missing Folder' and navigate to the corresponding folder inside the 'Pictures' folder. The folder should now not show as 'missing' anymore. Do this for all the other missing folders on the E: drive as well. That should solve the missing folder problem on the E: drive.

Now there is one more missing folder to deal with: the 'Holiday' folder that Lightroom thinks is still on the C: drive. This folder is now on the root of the E: drive, but I assume you want this folder to be inside the 'Pictures' folder as well. So first move this folder into the 'Pictures' folder (using Windows Explorer) and then return to Lightroom, right-click on the 'Holiday' folder that Lightroom shows as missing on the C: drive and choose 'Find Missing Folder' again. Navigate to the 'Holidays' folder that's now inside the 'Pictures' folder on your E: drive and select it. You should see the folder 'jump' from the C: drive to the E: drive in the Lightroom folder panel, and the question mark should disappear.

NOW DON'T EVER MOVE ANY PICTURE FOLDERS OUTSIDE LIGHTROOM AMYMORE!

 

[Howard Routledge]

Matter now resolved.

Thank you.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Good to hear!