Hard Drive Mix Up

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Billt1608

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Jan 2, 2018
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Lightroom Experience
Intermediate
Lightroom Version
6.x
Operating System: Win 10
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info):Lightroom version: 6.10.1 [ 1117303 ]

Hi,
I have two external HDs for storing images. Today when I tried to use one of those images. I found that Lightroom believed files had been switched. That is drive 1 had the files from drive 2 and visa versa. The files are in fact in the drive where I had stored them.
What happened and how do I fix it?
Bill​
 
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Most likely case is that Windows has switched drive letters on you. Right click on one of these images and let LR show you the path that it recorded for the image and see if the drive letter agrees with where the image is shown to be located in Windows Explorer.
 
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Billt1608 said:
Operating System: Win 10
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info):Lightroom version: 6.10.1 [ 1117303 ]

Hi,
I have two external HDs for storing images. Today when I tried to use one of those images. I found that Lightroom believed files had been switched. That is drive 1 had the files from drive 2 and visa versa. The files are in fact in the drive where I had stored them.
What happened and how do I fix it?
Bill​
Click to expand...
Windows assigns letters to external HDs in the order that you plug the drives into your system. How about this? Unplug both drives (using EJECT so you don't lose any data). Then plug in the drive with the images? Now see if LR can find those images. If yes, you know that you should always plug in the images drive first. If no, then plug in the other drive first.

Phil
 
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Thanks for your quick responses. Here is a bit more info.

I thought I had it solved. I disconnected and reconnected the external drives and everything appeared to be ok. But when I tried to access an image everything reverted.

Lightroom seems to think the files in computer drive K should be in M. When I highlight a file in Lightroom (they all have the ? because they are not there) drive K it shows that it expects it to be in drive K but the file is in drive M.

Lightroom seems to think the files in computer drive M should be in K. When I highlight a file in Lightroom (they all have the ? because they are not there) drive M it shows that it expects it to be in drive M but the file is in drive K.

So what do I do?

Bill
 
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You have to switch the drive letters using the link in the previous message. Disconnect the current M drive, then assign the letter M to the current K drive. Connect the old M drive again (it will get another letter because M is now already taken) and assign the letter K to it.
 
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Thanks to everyone who responded. I have my images back.
Thank you for you help.
Bill
 
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A better way to avoid this mix is to "mount" your drives in a folder.

1. Follow the process described here: How to Re-assign a Drive Letter on Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7 and 8) , up to step 3
2. At step 4, click on "Add" instead of "Change"
3. Select "Mount in the following empty NTFS folder" and click on "Browse"
4. In the browse window, select your internal drive and Click on "New folder", name it -say - "External drive A" then click "Ok"
5. Click "Ok" in the window to assign this path to your external drive.

Now, each time you will connect the external drive, its content will be accessible, not only via the letter assigned by Windows (which may change), but also via the folder "External Drive A" wich will never change. Then tell Lightroom that photos on this drive must be accessed via this folder, and not via the drive letter. You will no longer have to worry to how you connect your drive.

This is also very useful for every program that have to access the drive and run automatically (like backup program)

On my system, I've created a global folder called "External", and in it I've created a folder for each drive/key I have to connect. That way, it's easy to access the content of the external drives, using always the same path.
 
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Thanks,
After I received this message I signed onto Lightroom and the drive letters had already changed. I have had this setup for a long time and this is the first time this has happened. Is this a result of a Windows update? I have followed Philippe's suggestion, hope this will fix it.
Thanks again
Bill
 
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First I want to thank you for your help above It has worked fine until now.
I belive I have a new perhaps related issue.
I have Win 10 and Lightroom 6.10.1
I have 4 external hard drives with images. 2 of the drives have images that have been imported into the Lightroom data base. The other 2 are backups.
Drive L has the 2015-current images.
Drive M has older images.
My problem is that Lightroom seems to think that:
L should have the images that are on M but can't find them and
M should have the images that are on L but cant find them
Please Help
 
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Hi Bill. It sounds like Windows just swapped the drive letters. Just swap them back. Change L to something later in the alphabet (Z?), then you'll be able to set M back to L, then you can change Z to M. How to assign a drive letter in Windows 10
 
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Victoria Bampton said:
Hi Bill. It sounds like Windows just swapped the drive letters. Just swap them back. Change L to something later in the alphabet (Z?), then you'll be able to set M back to L, then you can change Z to M. How to assign a drive letter in Windows 10
Click to expand...
Thanks for your response but I belive it is a Lightroom Issue in that the L drive has what the L drive should have but Lightroom believes it should have the files that M has.
 
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As several folks have said, this is a problem with Windows, not with Lightroom. Look at the link Victoria provided (and/or the one from this forum that I provided months ago, which explains why this might become a problem and provides a simple solution). If you assign the drive letters as suggested, they should stay the same with time. In the unlikely case that you have so many drives that L and M are the first unused values, you could try assigning later values in the alphabet, like Q or X.
 
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