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How to recover photos from Back up hard drive

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trevorpoots

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Joined
Jun 18, 2022
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6
Lightroom Version Number
11.3.1
Operating System
  1. macOS 12 Monterey
For years I have used Lightroom to edit photos with total success. Today the inevitable happened and I don't know how to fix it, So any help greatly appreciated. All my photos are imported to Lightroom from an external WD hard drive. (I do have a back up on another external WD Hard Drive). My primary external HD has failed and all my files in Lightroom are just thumbnails. Is there any way I can redirect Lightroom to my backup hard drive.
 
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Hi and welcome!

So, basically follow Option Two on this Blog - from point (4). It explains how to relink (as in point to a different place) the photos to the new drive. Do it at the highest point possible so all the ones in sub-folders are found at the same time.

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/move-photos-another-hard-drive-leaving-catalog/

Take a copy of your catalog first, just as a go-back point (for your own peace of mind!)
 
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There may be two different issues (or in fact there may only be one issue and your drive didn't fail). Apple changed the security requirements in MacOS Monterey. Go to MacOS 'System Settings - Security & Privacy' and add Lightroom Classic and Photoshop to "Full Disk Access". Click on the lock icon to unlock the settings, then click on the plus icon to add Lightroom Classic and/or Photoshop if it isn't already listed. If it is listed, then just enable the checkbox.

SecurityPrivacy.jpg
 
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trevorpoots said:
If I manually link all my photo files to the backup external Hard drive is there a way to recover my edits?
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You do not have to recover your edits. Your edits are stored in the catalog, so relinking the images is all you need to do to relink edits and images.
 
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trevorpoots said:
Hi Johan. Did that but made no difference. The external HD is not even showing up in finder
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Then the drive is indeed damaged, but it does not have to be dead. Did you try to repair it with Disk Utility?
 
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