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Lightroom and Photos onto a new Computer

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Andrewjmarino

New Member
Joined
Nov 26, 2014
Messages
19
Lightroom Experience
Intermediate
Lightroom Version
Lightroom Version Number
11.1
Operating System
  1. Windows 10
Hello

Yes, I messed up making the transition to a new laptop. So, hopefully, I am back to square one and someone can make it idiot-proof for me.
I have a new laptop.
Lightroom Classic and my Catalog are already installed.
I also moved my photos from my old laptop (in one parent folder) to an external drive (E) - this drive will now be my main photos storage device.

I connected the external drive, but I got all confused because my photos were showing the old drive storage location (D).
I don't remember what steps I took, (find file? update location?) but they didn't work.
I think cleared out all the mess I made.
My catalog is still ok on my internal drive D.
I will remove the external drive. Plug it back in.
Now, what do I do...? :)

Thank you and my apologies. I know that there are tons of info/videos about doing this.
Andrew
 
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Ok, an update.
When I plug the external drive (photos) back in, this is what I see in LC. Attached file.
How do I get LC to find my photos on the external drive? Thanks

Picture1.png
 
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Hi

The problem is that I have no source available to select in the left panel. There is no drive / no folders (yes, my external drive is plugged in).
Attached file

Thank you
 

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Andrewjmarino said:
Hi

The problem is that I have no source available to select in the left panel. There is no drive / no folders (yes, my external drive is plugged in).
Attached file

Thank you
Click to expand...
Please do not resize your screenshots so much. These are too small to be of any use.
 
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The basic problem would appear to be that you are opening an empty catalog (All Photographs total is 0), so that explains why there is no source to select. You need to go back and confirm that you are opening the correct catalog.
 
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Thank you for your reply. I was very definitely opening the correct catalog.

As it turns out, I solved the problem but I have no idea how or why there was a problem.
I went back to square one. I uninstalled LR; deleted my catalog from new laptop and reformatted (thus deleted my photos) from my external drive.
I reninstalled LR, copied the photos and catalog onto the external drive and then I exactly followed the Anthony Morganti video tutorial and it worked...well...mostly worked.

For some reason even after going back to square one (Windows? LR? Drive?) was creating new folders and/or changing names that I simply still do not understand and is too confusing to even try to explain. You'd have to see it to believe it.

Something like it was saying that I had a "G Folder" on my external drive which I absolutely never made - my external drive was plugged into my G Drive on my old laptop when I copied my photos onto it.
Also, after reformatting my external drive and copying the photos onto it again and plugging it into the new laptop, LR? the Drive? Windows? was still showing the name of a top-level folder previous to the reformat. It should never had been there since I reformatted the drive.
I clicked the top-most parent folder and the "? marks" did not go away. Then I clicked the "G Folder" under the parent folder and was prompted that the Folders already exist in LR do you want to merge so I clicked yes and then had to do that again with another folder until I only have the parent folder visible. I do not even know that I am explaining all the steps correctly.

As it stands now, LR looks stable and like it is behaving correctly. Metadata is there etc.
I'm a little concerned, but I'm not convinced that I have some virus or serious bug to worry about. Just something very odd that was going on. I'll guess I'll know for sure after some time with the new laptop and LR and then again in 3 to 5 years when I need to do this all over again.

This thread can be closed and it probably will not be much use to anyone else.

Thank you again

Andrew

- Seriously, Adobe needs to make a definitive webpage dedicated to moving Lightroom. There are, at least, 3 different methods that I can think I've seen. Adobe needs to make video and written tutorials for each method. There are just way too many YouTube videos out there (some good; some terrible) to parse through.
 
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