Import Lightroom, Drives, Ports and External Drive Confusion

[Andrewjmarino]

Lightroom Version

11.4.1 (latest update)

Operating System

1. Windows 10

Hello



First, I have made absolutely no changes to my laptop, external drive for photo storage etc., since last using Lightroom.

I tried importing some photos into a new folder. Lightroom said that the destination folder was unavailable. However, (per forum posts) I created a folder on my external drive anyway and imported the photos. The photos are on my external drive in the correct folder and location.
All my photos are stored in one master folder on an external drive.


But, Lightroom or Windows or the external drive is seeing a D drive an E drive, and an F drive. See attachment

The recently imported photos/folder is "green" and reads as the "F Drive"
All my other photos/folders are greyed out in the "E Drive" (no exclamation mark!).

I have no E Drive and F Drive. I have one external drive with all my photos in one master folder.
That drive is not subdivided into sub-drives. In Explorer, it shows one drive and one Pictures folder containing all my photos.
I do have E and F ports on my laptop.
I assume Lightroom or Windows is confused about the port letters or something else.

I really don't know what to troubleshoot. I tried restarting my computer, but nothing changes.
I tried plugging the external drive into the other port (E), but nothing changed. Exact same scenario as above. The external drive still reads as "F" in the E port on my laptop.

I am concerned about dragging the folder from the "F" to the "E" drive or dragging all my other photos/folders from the "E" to the "F"
I shouldn't have to do this. As I said, all my photos are in one master folder on the external drive. Lightroom "shows" all my photos in "E", but greyed out.
I have no clue why Lightroom is seeing my external drive as an E and an F Drive.

I guess this why I hate having my photos on an external drive and dealing with ports and drive letters.
I did not have this problem with previous, recent imports.

I am frustrated and open to suggestions as well as a way to prevent this from ever happening again.
I have a screenshot

Thank you
Andrew

(Windows 10, btw)

 

[Jim Wilde]

Ports don't have letters, only the devices connected to them are assigned letters. So it sounds very much as though your system has allocated the letter "E" to some other device (card reader perhaps?). As a result the drive that was previously labelled by the system as "E" is now presumably labelled as "F". Normally that is a trivial issue to fix (right-click on the "Pictures" folder listed as missing under the E drive, select "Find Missing Folder", then navigate to and select the Pictures folder on the F drive).

But because you have imported new images into the F drive, we need to understand how to deal with that. So before doing anything, right-click on the "Savy" folder listed at the bottom of the Folders Panel under the F drive, and select "Show Parent Folder", then repeat the original screenshot.

Don't try any other corrective action, this looks like a simple issue to resolve if done the right way. Post that new screenshot and we'll advise further.

 

[Andrewjmarino]

Hi
Thank you for the quick, kind reply.
For better or worse, I have already taken some corrective action. My post in the Adobe LR Forum was answered.
But, I am still not entirely there.

1) I renamed (assigned a drive letter) my external drive to E, and that "found" all my other photos.
2) I then deleted the most recently imported folder (Savy - Lysa Birthday 2022) that was showing in F from the external drive.
The folder is no longer on the external drive.
My thinking was that I could just reimport the folder (from the camera SD card) into the, now, correct and active E Drive.

But, when I plug in the SD card the photos are greyed out - not available to import.

I also still get the same error message when trying to import. The Destination Folder F is not available.
I don't want an E and F folders. I want one folder on one external drive and never have to worry about it again.

In Lightroom - the F folder still shows "green" in the F Drive, but the photos are greyed out. See screenshot.

Thank you very much again
Andrew

 

[Jim Wilde]

Because you deleted that folder from the disk, without dojng it from within LrC, it obviously still thinks those images are in the catalog and so prevents you from re-importing them. The easiest way to fix this now is to exit the Import, then right-click on the "Savy" folder that's listed as missing under the F drive and select "Remove". That will remove the folder and contents from the LrC catalog, which will then allow you to re-import them from the SD card.

However, when you try to reimport you will get that error message again, you can OK to dismiss the message, but then you must pay attention to the Destination folder that you select in the Import Dialog. Make sure you select the "Savy" folder on the E drive, not any folder on the F drive, before you start the Import.

 

[Andrewjmarino]

Hi

Thank you. Yes, of course, that makes sense. I deleted the folder/photos from outside LR.
I did as you instructed, removing the folder from F and imported the photos from the SD card again.
LR looks to be correct now.

Is there any way to permanently get rid of that error message "The Destination Folder F is not available ..." and also to keep that F folder from showing up?
I never had that problem before about the Destination folder not being available


Thank you very much again
Andrew

 

[Jim Wilde]

Now that you have done a successful import to a different Destination folder, that error message should not appear. It's only a warning that the last import was using a destination folder that is no longer available, so when you select and execute an import using a different destination that will become the new "last destination", so the message will not appear until/unless that new destination is subsequently unavailable.

 

[Andrewjmarino]

Thank you again