PC to Mac lightroom Catalogue Problem

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Hi folks...

i have been a PC user for over 2' years... i have used Lightroom on a PC for the last few months and have edited almost 5',''' photos with it.

i few days ago my lap top died completely but all my photos including edits and my Lightroom catalog have always been on an external drive.

i bought a Mac Book Pro a few days ago and am now using Lightroom on that. when i try to open the catalog on this drive I am getting this error message

2el8jz9.jpg


Any ideas please on how i can get my mac to open and read this Catalog? if a PC can create, open, read and work entirely on external drives... why can a mac not do the same?

Thanks..
 
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How is your external drive attached?
The screenshot suggests it is a networked volume.

Try moving the catalog (ending with .lrcat) and your previews (.lrdata) into your MacBook Pros internal disk and then reconnect ypur photos still on the external.
 
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Alternatively it may be a permissions problem, i.e. Lightroom needs read/write permission for the catalog volume.
 
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Hello Bosse,

it's not a network connection... it's a simple USB connection. I'll try what you suggested and move the catalog file over to the Mac Hard drive.

Why is it that Macs cannot read or write to catalogs from external drives by the way?
 
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OK I copied the whole lightroom catalog over from the external drive to the Macs hard drive. it was 33 gigs in size and now i can see my entire catalog of 51,''' photos.

All the photo albums listed on the left have question marks beside them (?) so they are not yet editable.. the previews are there but every single file is listed as "offline or missing"

what do I do next? :eek:
 
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[quote author=Scrap link=topic=966'.msg65315#msg65315 date=127215'667]
OK I copied the whole lightroom catalog over from the external drive to the Macs hard drive. it was 33 gigs in size and now i can see my entire catalog of 51,''' photos.

All the photo albums listed on the left have question marks beside them (?) so they are not yet editable.. the previews are there but every single file is listed as "offline or missing"

what do I do next? :eek:


[/quote]The (dead?) windows machine owns that drive and OSX is honoring the ownership and does not have permission to write to it. This is why you got the first error. It is also why LR on OSX can not wirte any change to the drive if you are writing your changes to metadata on that drive. In Windows, it is possible for a user on a different machine to take ownership of a USB drive that has security set up by another machine. I assume this is possible in OSX too. Some OSX wizard will have to tell you how.

The Question marks are because the Catalog thinks the files are located in some folder that has a path that starts with a drive letter. Your USB drive is mapped as a folder on OSX as there are no drive letters in OSX. You just need to point the catalog to the new top level folder on your OSX machine.
 
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I expect the real issue is that the external drive is formatted with Windows NTFS and OSX cannot write to NTFS. I would copy everything off of the external drive and then format it with FAT32 (if you still want Windows to be able to access it) or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) if you are just using Macs now. Then you can copy your files back to it.
 
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[quote author=sizzlingbadger link=topic=966'.msg65327#msg65327 date=1272168561]
I expect the real issue is that the external drive is formatted with Windows NTFS and OSX cannot write to NTFS.[/quote]Ah! Yes. I forget about the differences in file systems. You are so right.

One more reason that a NAS has merit over an attached external drive.
 
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OK I just bought a new 2 terabyte drive... i'm new to Macs (5 days now :rolleyes:)

Would someone be kind enough to talk me through the process of formatting this drive correctly with the Mac and then tranferring my entire catalog and photos to it so it will work correctly?


Please pretty please.. :eek:
 
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It is usually best to format a new drive even though they come pre-formatted in many cases. If you are you are going to use the drive with only a Mac then I would use Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. If you want to share the drive with Windows machines then use FAT32.

In Applications/Utilities you will find the Mac Disk Utility. First connect the drive and then fire up the utility.

You should see your drive in the left hand column. Select the drive and click on the erase tab on the right.
Here you can select the file system you want, either Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or MS-DOS FAT.
You can also name the drive here (you can change that whenever you like though)

When your ready hit the erase button.

Be carful to select the correct drive as it will erase everything. When it is finished it will re-mount the empty drive with the name you gave it.

Then just copy your stuff back to it.
 
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Thank you Sizzling badger...

i formatted the new drive choosing the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. Then copied my entire 4'' gig photo collection and Lightroom catalog over to it. that took 8 hours.

i then tried to open this catalog that was created on the PC.. but got a "catalog corrupt" message. Lightroom then tried to repair this catalog but failed... :'(

i then created a new catalog on the Mac and imported the whole photo collection to it. This worked beautifully...

i now have all my photos including all past edits, tags, metadata etc done in the last 8 months all working perfectly!

Phew.

Thank you all for your assistance... :)
 
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It was not a case of not having backups.. i had about 5... it was that all my catalogs were created and edited in the Windows platform and although the Catalog files should be readable cross platform all of mine were coming up corrupt when the new Mac Book Pro tried to open them. Attempting to repair them had no effect either.

Then there was the worry that in transferring over 5',''' finely edited photos from an NTFS drive to a Mac HFS+ Journal volume that the edits would be lost.

The transfer was successful after the 3rd attempt and even then I did not get away unscathed. The category names got a little screwed. All my "dogs" photos for example were re-tagged "architecture". So 18 hours later I'm still tweaking and correcting things.

Nothing is perfect in this world. :rolleyes:
 
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Yes the PC (an overworked Dell Inspiron M171') could open, read and edit all my catalogs right up to the moment it died, (power failure) And I wager that soon as I get the power fixed it will read them again.
 
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[quote author=Scrap link=topic=966'.msg65646#msg65646 date=127252'453]
Yes the PC (an overworked Dell Inspiron M171') could open, read and edit all my catalogs right up to the moment it died, (power failure) And I wager that soon as I get the power fixed it will read them again.
[/quote]If what you are saying is true, then the Mac should be able to read them too. There is nothing unique about the *.lrcat file. If you copied one from the NTFS EHD to a Mac drive, what happens? If the Mac can't read that, then the copy process might be suspect or the drive itself may be failing.
I store my backup files on a NAS which uses LINUX XFS drives. I have no trouble reading them if I bring them back to the Windows environment. I have no doubt that I could send one to a Mac user and it would be readable.
 
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I'm sure as i evolve I'll be finding other solutions for my storage needs... i ideally I'd like two 6 terabyte drives sitting in a safe in another room never to be touched or moved and conduct all work and backups wirelessly through 2 inches of steel. :D
 
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