I've lost my lightroom catalogue and two years of editing !

[Mottie]

Lightroom Version Number

LR 4

Operating System

1. macOS 10.14 Mojave

Hi - Newbie here - and hoping you lovely people can help please ?

My mac ( late 2012) crashed and my local MacMan have got it going again. The time machine was backing everything up to a WD 1 TB hard drive, but 2 of these ( they supplied them) have failed now so I've lost faith in this route. Although I have a new external hard rive ( 3rd in 6 months) to back up everything, they moved all my photos that were in photos folders to documents, so this would back up to a the iCloud on a subscription basis ( £6 per month for 2 tb)
I've 'got my iMac back now, and the problem is I cannot now open my LR - this is LR 4, I installed on a disc.
I suspect its because all the photos were moved, and the menage I get when i open it LR catalog not found.
My options then are
create default catalogue or choose a different catalogue
I haven clicked on either as don't want to mess this up - there is a also a quit button.
Can anyone guide me here please - have I lost all my edits ?
I'm hoping not !
thank you

 

[Johan Elzenga]

The fact that your photos were moved has nothing to do with this. That is something that is easy to fix, but you do need to find a backup of your catalog. Lightroom keeps all the edits in the catalog, so without it you lose all edits. If you know where it is, then start Lightroom and choose the option to open a different catalog, or start Lightroom by double-clicking this catalog.

 

[Mottie]

Thank you - I've managed to get back into the library - thank goodness - and thanks for your help

 

[Roelof Moorlag]

I've managed to get back into the library -

Be sure to make backups regulary from both your catalog and photo files!