• Welcome to the Lightroom Queen Forums! We're a friendly bunch, so please feel free to register and join in the conversation. If you're not familiar with forums, you'll find step by step instructions on how to post your first thread under Help at the bottom of the page. You're also welcome to download our free Lightroom Quick Start eBooks and explore our other FAQ resources.
  • Stop struggling with Lightroom! There's no need to spend hours hunting for the answers to your Lightroom Classic questions. All the information you need is in Adobe Lightroom Classic - The Missing FAQ!

    To help you get started, there's a series of easy tutorials to guide you through a simple workflow. As you grow in confidence, the book switches to a conversational FAQ format, so you can quickly find answers to advanced questions. And better still, the eBooks are updated for every release, so it's always up to date.
  • Dark mode now has a single preference for the whole site! It's a simple toggle switch in the bottom right-hand corner of any page. As it uses a cookie to store your preference, you may need to dismiss the cookie banner before you can see it. Any problems, please let us know!

Library module LR catalog on separate HDD will not work on 2 computers

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Apr 5, 2019
Messages
2
Lightroom Version Number
11.4.1
Operating System
  1. Windows 10
I have my pictures and the LR catalog on a separate HDD.
If I import the pictures to the HDD and into LR on my laptop everything works fine,
When I then connect the HDD to my desktop an opens LR from the catlog at the HDD, LR starts but then I get G´"greyed out" foldThis phenomen started earlir this summer, pictures imported earlier works well.
If I then try to relink the missing folder, instead of relinking the whole folder dissappears from LR although the folder still is on the HDD visible in Windows.

Solutions appreciated

/Claes-Ove
 
The problem is almost certainly caused by the fact that the external drive that contains the catalog and images likely has a different drive letter on each system. If you're going to switch the drive between two systems it's a good idea to make sure the drive letter is the same on both. You CAN simply re-link the photos to the different drive letter each time you switch systems, and that should work if you only relink the top parent folder (all sub-folders will then reconnect automatically). The folder that "disappeared from LR" when you relinked it to the different drive letter should still be in the catalog, but will appear under a separate drive in the Folders Panel....check for that, and if it's still not showing please post a screenshot of the Folders Panel.
 
As a matter of personal policy, I always allocate a drive letter to internal or external hard drives (with the exception of the C drive) to letters in the second half of the alphabet (ie M-Z). Where possible, I might use letters which might have some meaning.... Such as P for Photos, Q for backup of P (because P & Q make a logical pair), T for Thunderbolt Enclosure, N for Nas drive, etc.

When inserting USB style fob keys, Windows may allocate the next logical drive letter (eg say D or E) . If your external drive has a letter E and it is plugged in after the USB fob key then your normal letter E for your external drive may be allocated the next available letter F .... so Lr will be looking for your files on E and they are now on F.

By allocating drive letters much higher in the alphabet to your spinning (or ssd) drives, you minimise in a big way the possibility of such confusion.

Here is a link to Microsoft documentation on this
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/disk-management/change-a-drive-letter

A google search will reveal lots more similar documentation, tutorials, etc..
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top