Lightroom 5.7 can't find folders

[Hermv2000]

Lightroom Version

5.7

Operating System

1. Windows 10

I recently bought a new PC running windows 10. My previous PC ran windows 7.

I copied everything from the old pc to the new pc using software and on the new pc the photos, both raw and jpegs appear in their correct folders.

When I launch Lightroom v5.7 on the new pc it can't find the folders. The library module shows the file hierarchy which is all organized by date but each folder shown has a question mark beside it. If I attempt to used the 'develop' module I get a message that the folder cannot be found.

Screen capture here:

I have the latest lightroom catalogue file and the .lrdata files on the new pc, it just doesn't seem to know where to look.
When I ask Lightroom to show the location of the catalog it shows the location as C:\Users\hveen\Pictures and upon checking that is indeed where the catalog resides on this pc. In a sub-folder of this folder is a folder called Lightroom 5 Catalog Previews.lrdata.

I'm OK with using lightroom to process photos but I must admit that the whole catalog thing and generally fiddling with a pc leaves me very frustrated.

I don't know what do do other than importing the raw files all over again which will take months as I have over 60,000 photos. They are all backed up to 3 external hard drives.

Thanks for any help with this issue.

Herman

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Hi Hermv2000, welcome to the forum!

Don't worry, that's quite normal. Lightroom stores a photo location like an address in an address book. You've just moved house and not updated the address book yet.

Definitely don't reimport the photos, as you'd lose all the work you've done. Back up your catalog before fixing, just for peace of mind.

Now, to fix it, we need to scroll up to the top of that Folders panel on the left of Lightroom to find the parent folder. That might be called something like Pictures or Lightroom Photos or something like that. It's the folder that contains all of the dated folders. Then you right-click on that, choose Find Missing Folder and navigate to the new location of that same folder. If you do it right, all of the question marks on the dated folders disappear. If in doubt, show us an updated screenshot.

Here's a little background reading for you with some extra pictures: Lightroom thinks my photos are missing—how do I fix it? | The Lightroom Queen

 

[Hermv2000]

Thank you so much Victoria. After some fiddling with it your suggestion worked and my folders now appear and the develop module works.

Herman