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LR3 and linking to images on external drives - HELP!

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Crazy Legs

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Jul 6, 2011
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Greetings all!My first time on here and I have a problem! Apologies for that but I'm sure I'm not the first. To set the scene - I have been using Lightroom for a few years but I'm far from an expert. I run it on an iMac with a 1TB drive, I shoot in Raw and have 30 - 40,000 images. I have my folders set up with the top folder being the year and then all the shoots for that year being listed by date eg '110101 New Years Day'. So when collapsed my folders are 2008, 2009, 2010 etc. The original raw files are in folders of the same name within a year folder within the Pictures folder.My internal drive is near to being full so I decided to copy my 'Pictures' folder to three 2TB external drives - one working drive and two back-ups. I did this over the past two days and this morning completed the task. I checked that all of my original raw files are now on three external drives and deleted the contents of the Pictures folder on my iMac. I then went into Lightroom and as expected there were question marks next to all of my folders. I chose one folder with only a few images in it and followed the 'find missing folder' route. I directed it to my external drive and chose a folder/file. At this point something happened (not sure what exactly) I think I saw the image as a thumbnail in LR but then noticed that the entire folder was missing from my folder list on the lefthand side. I tried something similar with another folder and although the folder did not disappear from the folder list and was no longer greyed out it showed that there were no images in it.I then had to leave home and come to work (feeling very worried!). Up to this point I have been very happy with managing my files and folders but I am confused as to what to do now or what I have done wrong. What do I need to do to be able to use the folders which are now on the external drives? I know that the thumbnails are still in LR3 but to work on them or export them they need to be able to link up to the original raws.Anyone with any advice? I am somewhat slow when it comes to computer matters so nice and simple would be appreciated.Thanks in anticipationAndy
 
Andy,

Welcome to the forum.

It sounds like you have a pretty good handle on how Lightroom works, and what you say you have done sounds like the right thing to get you where you want to be. Not to worry. The help you'll get here will most likely get you straightened out in a jiffy.

When you get home, could you create a screen shot of your Folders panel with the problematic folder expanded? Also a screen shot of that folder expanded in the Finder.

As an aside, I found the dense, no-paragraph wall of text you sent to be difficult to read. It would be helpful for both of us if you could break things up a little. Thanks.

Hal
 
Hi Hal,Thanks for the reply. I will try and do a screenshot ( never done it before!) when I get back. I wrote my question when I was offline and it was in about 5 paragraphs - when I posted it formed this horrendous wall of text!! Not sure how that happened!Kind regardsAndy
 
LOL. :)

I'm not a Mac person, so maybe someone else can help you do a screen shot.

Hal
 
On Mac you can use a native utility called Grab to get a shot of the screen.
 
Short update: unfortunately I finished work too late last night and started too early this morning to work on this - I have managed to discover how to do a screen shot on a Mac - so at least I have learnt something!I tried linking a folder with question mark in Lightroom to the raw images in the folder on the external drive. I clicked on find missing folder and then in the box that came up I selected the external drive and chose the appropriate folder. LR then sprang into action..... and the folder then disappeared from my list of folders on the left ???? Very confused!Hopefully tonight I will be able to get the screenshots on here and someone will be able to identify what I'mdoing wrong!RegardsAndyPS I have used paragraphs... lets see how it uploads!
 
Well it uploaded horrendously! I have sent a message to the site to see how I can resolve the case of my stolen paragraphs!!!Andy
 
LR then sprang into action..... and the folder then disappeared from my list of folders on the left ???? Very confused!

It would be good to see a screenshot of your Folders Panel, but my guess is the folder that you relinked has now been moved from under it's missing parent folder and 'collapsed' under it's new parent folder on the external drive. When you do the relinking, it'd be much quicker and easier to start with your parent 'year' folders, Lightroom will then automatically correct the locations of all the sub-folders.
 
Okay...I'm back from work and want to try and sort out this mess!! I just tried going to what I think has been referred to as a parent folder ie I went to the 2010 folder that contains all of my shoots for 2010 in subfolders. I right clicked it and chose the 'Find Missing Folder' command and then picked it on the external drive. As I chose it there was a bit of computer action and the folder 2010 disappeared from my folder list!!!!

There must be a way to solve this but I am confused so here are some screen shots. The first one is the view of my screen in LR:

Screen shot 2011-07-07 at 8.14.37 PM.jpg

This is the folder panel in more detail:
Screen shot 2011-07-07 at 8.27.42 PM.png



I then clicked the find missing folder command:

Screen shot 2011-07-07 at 8.14.56 PM.jpg

And then end up with this box:

Screen shot 2011-07-07 at 8.15.26 PM.png

If I then select choose there is some activity and then the folder would disappear from the folder list.

So how do I successfully link LR to the files that I have moved form the internal to the external drive??? And after that how do I replace the individual subfolders and the master 2010 folder back in LR???

Any ideas????

Thanks in anticipation - and now I'm on the desktop hopefully the paragraphs will work!

Regards

Andy
 
When you right-clicked on the 2010 folder what drive was it listed under in the Folders Panel?

When you did the 'Find Missing Folder' for the 2010 folder, what new drive did you point LR at?

The 2010 folder 'disappearing' is totally expected because it is no longer listed under the original drive because you have told LR to look at a different drive.


Is the new drive showing in the Folders Panel? Have you expanded it to see what folders are now listed there. Is the 2010 Folder listed there?
 
HI Jim,

Thanks for the quick response. The new drive is showing in the folders panel, it's the one at the bottom of the screenshot shown as 'Back Up A'. I had not noticed it there and you are quite right the 2010 parent folder is there and all of the subfolders for 2010 are also there and not a question mark in sight! Marvellous!

Now I understand (basically ) how it works with images on an external drive - thank you. All I want to do now is to somehow remove the five folders from 2011 that are now linked to the Back Up drive and get them back into the main 2011 parent folder on the computer hard drive. Is theer an easy way to do this??

Thanks again.

Andy
 
Sorry meant to show screen grab of folders that I am referring to!

Screen shot 2011-07-07 at 9.06.03 PM.png


So these five folders I want to get back into the 2011 parent folder

Thanks
 
Moving the 5 folders is a simple drag and drop operation.....but why do you want to move them back to the internal drive, I thought you were trying to move everything to the new external? In fact I thought you had deleted all the folders from your internal drive?

If you were to do the 'Find Missing Folder' on the 2011 folder, and point it to the Back Up A drive, you should find that those 5 sub-folders will slot nicely under the new 2011 folder.
 
Is the "110109 Football" actually stored under a 2011 folder? If so, then I think you can just select the football folder in LR, right-click and select "add parent folder" to display the 2011 folder. It is there, but LR just isn't showing it.
 
Thanks Jim.

I had deleted all of the folders for 2006 - 2010 to the external drive but not all of the 2011 folders - I had kept some back that I know I will still be working on. So I now have the parent 2011 folder with some subfolders fine linking to the internal drive and others with the horrible question marks. For neatness I think I want to have all the 2011 files on the internal drive and then at the beginning of each year move them to the external drives.

I understand that I can just drag and drop the folders of original raw images from the external drive to the internal drive but how do I create the folders back in LR3? I'm used to creating the subfolders on import from the card but not sure how to do it in these circumstances??

Any ideas?
 
Hmmm....from what I can make out I think you've managed to create a bit of a mess regarding the 2011 sub-folders. Do you have any idea why many of them are showing the question marks, while others aren't? It seems as if some of the sub-folders have been deleted, but is that by design?

I guess I'm asking if you are wanting full access restored to all the 'missing' 2011 sub-folders? Assuming Yes, am I right in thinking that the Back Up A drive has a complete copy of the 2011 folder, including the 'missing' sub-folders? It looks that way from the earlier screenshots.

If so you could proceed as follows:

1. Take a catalog backup before starting, this is your fallback should things go wrong.
2. Right-click on the parent 2011 folder on the internal drive and select 'Update Folder Location'. Use the file browser to select the equivalent 2011 folder on the Back Up A drive. This should cause 2011 to disappear from the internal and appear on the Back Up A drive....and all the 'missing' sub-folders should be present, i.e. no question marks.

3. If that works correctly, close Lightroom and then copy the 2011 folder from the Back Up A drive back to the correct location on the internal drive (this should restore the missing sub-folders back to the internal drive).
4. Restart Lightroom, then right-click on the 2011 parent folder on the Back Up A drive, select 'Update Folder Location' again, but this time point Lightroom back to the 2011 folder on the internal drive.....and hopefully you're back in business.
5. At your leisure, run the 'Find Missing Folder' process on all the earlier year parent folders.

Hopefully that all makes sense, and should work if my assumptions are indeed correct. If they are NOT, check back before starting anything.
 
Hi Jim,

I had deleted some of the 2011 subfolders from the internal drive and left some on the internal drive hence the mix up! I have now copied from 'Back Up A' to the internal drive all the folders that I had originally deleted and they could then be seen by the 2011 parent folder. So I now have all 2011 subfolders on my internal drive and all of the others on the external drive.

Screenshot:

Screen shot 2011-07-07 at 10.54.43 PM.png

When I open the parent year folders I get all of the subfolders and no question marks so I reckon that means it is solved!!!!

Thanks so much for your help it really is very much appreciated.

Kind regards


Andy Jones
 
No worries....glad it's all sorted.
 
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