Importing from backup

[Eclyps19]

So, I have been telling Lightroom to save all of my images on a secondary drive.

I recently formatted my primary drive and reinstalled lightroom.

My issue is that now I need to link lightroom back up with the folders and files on my secondary drive. Is there an easy way to do this?

 

[sizzlingbadger]

I hope you a backup of your catalogue file (if that was on your primary drive). You should just be able to open the catalogue and see the images. If the catalogue is also on the secondary drive then just point LR to it (or double click it) to open it and all should be well.

 

[breyman]

Welcome to the forum Eclyps19!

I second Nik's comments about having a backup of your catalog. The only additional consideration will be if the external drive is mapping to a different drive letter as a result of the reimage. If that's the case, you can right-click on the top level folder(s) and click Update Folder Location... and point to the new drive letter.

If, for some unfortunate reason, you lost your catalog file, you'll have to rebuild all the work done there (collections, etc.). If you were automatically saving settings to XMP your pictures should still be okay...

 

[dj_paige]

If, for some unfortunate reason, you lost your catalog file, you'll have to rebuild all the work done there (collections, etc.). If you were automatically saving settings to XMP your pictures should still be okay...

Just to be 1''% clear, collections are not saved to .xmp. Same is true for stars, flags, colors, virtual copies, stacks, edit history sequence, and a few other things that I probably can't remember now.

Which is why having a copy of your catalog backed up is imperative; and if you have a copy, better to use that than to re-import.

 

[breyman]

Absolutely right, sorry for any confusion there. I should have specified that development settings and some metadata applied directly to the photos would be saved in that case. Hopefully, the catalog is still somewhere as it has lots of other great info, too.

 

[Denis Pagé]

So, I have been telling Lightroom to save all of my images on a secondary drive...

Welcome to the forums Eclyps19!

First: What are the exact steps you took for this first step of saving all your images to a secondary drive?

Also, Mac/PC? Lightroom version? OS version? Can you please give this information in your signature so you will not have to repeat each time answers depend on it? You can do so by going to the "User CP" link above left of the blue bar right under the LR logo... Thanks.

 

[Brad Snyder]

Actually, rating stars and colors/labels are saved to XMP, but everything else Paige said there is correct. The minor things he indicated he might have forgotten are not pertinent in this context.

 

[dj_paige]

Thanks for the correction.