Help, viewing backup files.

[tiler65]

I am a newbie so please be patient.

I lost/crashed a backup external hard drive and I have been told that it is non-recoverable but before I lost the drive I did a Lightroom backup and I have various LR databases and catalogs. Some of these files are 'noindex' files (I don't know what these are)

When I run LR I can see all the photos I lost but LR says that the file is missing and I am unable to edit or export it.

What I want to do is open the file where I backed up LR to so that I can recover the photos.

I have tried to import as a catalog to LR but nothing happens.

Please help if you can or give me the dreaded words of 'you are well and truly ********'

Thanks for reading.

 

[Brad Snyder]

Tiler, well, you're somewhere in between.

If the source files are truly gone on your hard-drive, then they're gone.

What's contained in the LR Catalog is the preview cache, the exact contents of which will depend on the set-ups you've made for rendering previews at import, and your preview cache clearing settings. If you have some 1:1 previews, they'll be pretty nice. Minimal previews, will be kinda crappy.

Fortunately, it is possible extract the previews from the DB cache. For the easiest way (IMHO) go d/l Marc Rochkind's LR Viewer, here: (the sooner the better)

http://basepath.com/ImageIngester/. This application will give you LR independent access to the catalog (or backup catalog) and will enable you to save images out as jpg's.

(If you can retrieve some images, consider a donation to Marc, most of his work is freeware/donationware.)

 

[Victoria Bampton]

And before you do ANYTHING, duplicate your catalog and previews file just in case something you do accidentally deletes something important!

Sorry to hear of your problems Tiler! Welcome to the forum!