Lost catalogue with strange files!~

[Chrissy]

Can someone please help me urgently please? I have been happily been editing about 25'' shots from a big shot of the 'Boy from Oz' show here in Townsville, when my Lightroom stopped responding. I had to shut down... then I had to import some new photos I had to quickly take this afternoon for an identity card. I stupidly thought that selecting from as part of the first night shoot, and adding them to a new catalogue (its been late nights) would give me a new folder withing the Lightroom catalogue I was in....silly me...Of course it opened a whole new catalogue. I realised I should close and try and reinstate my old catalogue from the afternoon's work on the53' edits I had already worked on.. when I tried to re-instate from my backups the usual trick didn't work as the file said there was nothing in it.. When I look in explorer instead of LRCAT file there are alot of NEF files????? IN fact a few of the previous back up files have NEF files instead of LRCAT files? I am really confused and cross too as its a lot of word to redo with a deadline of Saturday Oz time to have the discs ready to give to cast.
I apologise for the long explanation. I do have the back-up on an external drive and back-up each time I go into Lightroom.
Is anyone able to help me figure out how I can get these NEF files back into Lightroom without re-importing all the unedited files again?
OR if I imported the dng files in Explorer would they be holding their edits/
I hope I am making sense and thanks if anyone would be able to help me. Hmph, just when I thought I was getting really good at this
Cheers Chrissy

 

[Denis Pagé]

Welcome to the Forums Chrissy.

NEF files and LRCAT files a quite different. NEF are images themselves and LRCAT are databases containing references to the NEF or others. One LRCAT can contain references to thousands of different NEF. Exporting to new Catalogue creates a new LRCAT file; Not a new folder within the working Catalogue... So, make a search for *.lrcat on your computer and choose the one (should be bigger) with a time stamp just prior to your new empty Catalogue. Double click it...

 

[Brad Snyder]

Or, with Lr running, look at the recent catalogs listed in the File Menu > Open Recent dropdown.

 

[Chrissy]

Thanks chaps I did do the above, and realise the difference between NEF and + LRCAT files which was why when the crash came I had no idea why I couldn't just reinstate the latest backup. I know it was my fault for accidentally starting a new catalogue, but still can't figure out why my back-up catalogue file had NEF files not Lrcat files in it? Was it because of the crash to you think? I had to reimport the dng files (thank goodness I had them in Explorer) for my deadline, I just don't want this to happen again as I am so careful of backups? Hope I am not wasting your time....ps I wish I had done the Brad suggestion first by the way, by the time I did it it was too late? Always a learning process! Cheers and thanks again Chrissy