removing an extra hard drive in my LR catalog that's not really there

[Bren]

Hi,
Has anyone else had a non-existent drive appear in their catalog? I've looked through the forum posts and have not found any other references to this issue, so I'm hoping to tap into your collective wisdom

My catalog is showing two 'D' drives (I use 'C' for programs and 'D' for data)but my computer has only one 'D' drive.

I've tried various ways to eliminate the apparent duplicate drive including right click/synchronising them both, right click/updating the folder location, moving the images into one folder by drag & drop, and showing parent folder from the highest visible folder (which returns an error message).

The import dialogue only shows one 'D' so there is no obvious way I'm choosing the "wrong" one. After import the catalog shows them in the D folder with fewer images in it i.e. the one which to my mind is the duplicate. I end up with two separate folder hierarchies, which don't match my hard drive layout, and if I drag images from one to the other, LR seems to lose them

I'd be grateful for any advice on how to get rid of this problem please.

Brenda

 

[Jim Wilde]

Hi Brenda, welcome to the forum.

The problem you describe is almost always a case-sensitivity issue, i.e. something has been changed somewhere along the path back to the D drive from the actual folders, such as changing the case of the initial letter of one of the parent folders. The operating system is case insensitive, i.e. it doesn't care if you change the case of any of the folder names.....but Lightroom is case sensitive, so change the case of one letter of a folder name and it then thinks that's a completely different folder.

To check this, can you hover the cursor over both of the "Originals" folders in the Folders Panel, and type in the full path of the two entries which appear in a pop-up when you do the hover. Be careful to ensure you record the exact path, upper case and lower case precisely. I would expect there to be a slight case difference.

Then I need an Explorer view of the full path to the Originals folder on the D drive, so that I can see which of the two paths is the correct one. We need that information to decide how to fix the problem.

 

[Bren]

Hi Jim,
many thanks for the welcome and your very quick response.Just checking in after a very long day and wanted to say thanks. I'll follow your suggestion, sounds very promising. It will be tomorrrow evening before I can get to it, but I'm really looking forward to sorting this out.
best wishes
Brenda

 

[Bren]

Hi Jim,
correct diagnosis!There is a single digit difference. I'd never have found this.

path for the top folder is d:\Users\Brenda\Pictures\Originals
and for the bottom one is D:\Users\Brenda\Pictures\Originals
screenshot of the path in explorer is below.

What next, please?

best wishes
Brenda

 

[Jim Wilde]

Thanks. Not quite what I was expecting to see, the case difference is usually somewhere below the drive letter. Don't recall seeing that before, in fact I'm trying to figure out how the lower case drive letter was assigned....most unusual. In fact I'm a little concerned that the error message in your screenshot also shows a lower-case letter for the drive containing the catalog.

No matter, that still looks like the culprit, so in order to fix it we have to get Lightroom to see all the folders along the same path, ending in the upper-case drive letter. To do this, proceed as follows:

1. Take a catalog backup....this will be the restore point should the rest of the procedure go wrong (it rarely does).

2. Using Explorer, create a new temporary folder in the root directory of the C drive, called "LRF".

3. In Lightroom, in the Folders Panel, right-click on the "Pictures" folder and select "Update Folder Location". In the resulting file browser, navigate to and select the "LRF" folder created in step 2. "LRF" will replace "Pictures", but don't be alarmed when the "Originals" and "working" folders below "LRF" then show the "?" mark to indicate they're missing.

4. Now right-click on the "LRF" folder, again select "Update Folder Location", this time navigate to and select the "Pictures" folder back on the D drive in your user folder. You'll probably get a "Merge" warning message, it should be OK to click on "Merge" and hopefully everything will be back to normal with just one set on folders on the one D drive.

If that doesn't fix things, let me know what happens and we'll think some more.

 

[Bren]

Thanks Jim,
excellent progress, I now have most of the images in one unified folder- many thanks !. I just appear to have 4028 unlinked images in a duplicate working folder (see attached). How do I join them back into the pack?. A huge improvement, and a relief- this has been quite a frustrating problem.
best wishes

Brenda

 

[Jim Wilde]

Hmmm....that's a little odd, I can't work out why that's happened. However, let's concentrate on fixing it. Can you expand that missing "working" folder, i.e. the greyed out one with the "?" mark, then take a screenshot of it. Also do the same using Explorer, expand the "working" folder under Pictures and take a screenshot. I just need to compare them so that I understand how the folders under the "missing" working folder need to be fixed.

 

[Bren]

Screenshots of the working folder in LR and Explorer

Hi Jim,
mmm- I didn't realise my working "tree" had got so big. I reorganised it a few months back (on reflection, probably in explorer, not from within LR). I have only recently (Nov 14) moved away from images in subject-specific sub-folders in favour of folders by month, then organising them inside LR using collections- largely by following Victoria Bramptons advice in the LR5 FAQ book.

So, this looks like a bit of a mess, but once it's sorted, hopefully I can keep it in order from now on

Anyway, here goes: First the hierarchy within Lightroom, (sorry- not sure why, but they appear in reverse order to how I attached them- so read from right to left!)

then, in Explorer, (but these are incorrwct order from left to right)

Gulp!:shock: Very grateful for your help on this Jim.

Brenda

 

[Jim Wilde]

Sorry, but it's a bit difficult to see exactly why this second issue has arisen, and it's also difficult to see how successful the recovery might be....there are some folders listed in Lightroom which don't tie up with the Explorer view, e.g. the "1411xx" folders, so recovering those may need some further work.

But to try to recover, we'll do something similar to the first procedure, with a couple of slight differences:

1. Take a catalog backup to create a restore point, just in case.
2. If you've deleted that "LRF" folder from the C drive, can you create it again.
3. In the Folders Panel, right-click on the missing "working" folder, i.e. the one with the "?" mark, and select "Find Missing Folder". In the file browser, navigate to and select the "LRF" folder.
4. When that's completed, right-click on the "LRF" folder, and select "Update Folder Location". In the file browser, navigate to and select the actual "working" folder on the D drive. You should again get the "Merge" warning dialog, so select "Merge".

Fingers crossed, that should merge most of the folders and clear most of the "missing" folders.

Let me know how that goes, and let me know what still needs to be recovered.

 

[Bren]

Morning Jim,
We're just about there
thanks again- we're now down to 253 stranded images and it is exactly the ones you described that do not appear in the actual working folder. I can see what I have done . The 1411xx folders were directly under "working" in the library and at some point I have moved them under the relevant month folder i.e.1411 to tidy it up. The number of images in the 1411 folder exactly corresponds with the numbers showing as missing, and I can open them in 1411. So should I just "remove" the missing ones?

Finally, that just leaves an untitled export which isn't important and 72 images under "WW1 memorial" which I can re-import from the originals. And then presumably delete the LRF folder.

regards

Brenda

 

[Jim Wilde]

OK, that looks better. Yes, just right-click>Remove on the "missing" 1411xx folders. And yes, delete the LRF folder, then do whatever last bit of tidying up that needs doing.

 

[Bren]

...It's happening again...seems to be to o with Canon DPP

Hi Jim,
I'm really sorry to come back to this but I've just returned from a week's holiday and downloaded my images, as I usually do via EOS Utility (which is set to import them into date folders and them open to view in DPP).

On importing them into Lightroom from Explorer, the problem of the duplicate D drive has reappeared. It appears as the correct filder in LR when I select it but after import shows 2 D drives again. I've looked at my EOS Utility settings and all appears ok there.
grateful for any advice please :hm:

Brenda

 

[Jim Wilde]

Brenda, can you hover over the "06" folder under the second "D" drive in the Folders Panel, then note down the exact name of the file path that appears in a pop-up.

Can I also ask why you use EOS Utility to upload your photos from the memory card? I'm just wondering if that's at the root of the problem that you keep getting. You can import directly into Lightroom from the card, and it will copy (upload) the images from the card to your hard drive, and you can have them automatically put into one of quite a few different date formats. I think it might be worth considering.

 

[Bren]

Hi Jim,
as before, the only difference is in the initial letter "d"- it is a capital D on the duplicate and lower case on the main folder with all the expected sub folders. ... so, I'm guessing the remedial fix is as before via a LRF folder in the root drive etc? But, as you're proposing- the EOS utility program might be the problem. I've only realised this with my latest upload following our discussion about sorting it out. I clearly wasn't paying attention before!

Anyway, to your point about why I use EOS utility- I guess I just got into the habit from before I was using Lightroom and use that step to delete duds and duplicates so that only the files I want in my LR catalog get imported. The trade off of course is that it is an extra step in the process. And it's not worth the problems it appears to be causing. so, I'll try importing directly from memory card into Lightroom and report back !!
Brenda

 

[Bren]

Hi Jim,
many apologies...
I hesitated to download anything but finally gave it a go last night. I downloaded directly from my camera into Lightroom...and...the duplicate folder is back. I've hovered over the two folders in the library module and as previously, the only difference is capital D on the "false" folder and lower case d on the real drve. I was half tempted to ignore it but I know my folders will get into a mess again. Is there any way I can start afresh, painful though it may be???

thanks, as ever, for your help and advice,

Brenda

 

[Bren]

new line of thinking- are there actually 2 D drives?

Hi,
I seem to have had something of a breakthrough with this puzzle.
With a little help, I've delved into the file structure in windows explorer.

I had thought that "This PC" was a kind of favourites folder, and hence I have the "pictures" folder showing from the root drive as it is one of my most frequently used places. However, if I follow the file path down via the "D" drive to the "pictures" folder the content matches exactly- sub folders etc. but the folder properties reveal a big D and a little d. So, this appears to be some sort of synchronisation that goes on in the background. Lightroom is choosing the big D as the destination and recreating that drive each time I import.

So, if this is true, I either need to redirect Lightroom to look at little d instead of creating a big D on each import or move all my catalogue where I have tidied up the files to look at big D.

I have added screenshots of the file properties below.

Please can you advise me?
best wishes
Brenda

 

[Jim Wilde]

Brenda, I really don't know what's going on here. There's only one D drive, but somehow the file path when viewed from the Pictures folder under "This PC" is subtly different when viewed from directly under the D drive. I have no explanation for that, but I suspect it's the cause of all your problems. Unless one of our Windows exports can shed some light on it, you may need to post in something like the Windows7 forum to see if they can help.

As regards the current Lightroom issue, once again I'll need to know the full path as Lightroom sees it when hovering over the "2015" folder under the lower D drive, and the Pictures folder when hovering over the Pictures folder under the upper D drive.

 

[Bren]

Hi Jim,
wierd, isn't it? I'll get hubby onto the windows forum enquiry and let you know if they have an answer.
In the meantime, I'd like to move my whole catalog over to the Upper D folder since that's the one LR keeps re-creating.
Upper D has the following path:
"D:\Users\Brenda\Pictures\Originals\2015"

lower d has the following:
"d;\Users\Brenda\Pictures\Originals\2015"

I'd like to move everything under "Pictures" across please

Brenda

 

[gpsmikey]

This sounds sort of like a situation I managed to shoot myself in the foot with some years ago (actually, back in the CP/M days ... that dates me!!). I had managed to create a folder or something along those lines (I forget exactly) from basic - the OS expected the names to be upper case and always displayed them that way, but in basic, it created the file exactly as I had specified (in this case, it was lower case) hence the confusion - when I viewed a directory listing, it showed it in upper case, but you could not delete it and would get "file not found". Windows will only let you have one drive "D" (or any other letter for that matter), so somehow, it sounds like you are running into that sort of confusion. (in Win XP or win 7, if you go into disk manager as an admin, you can change a drive letter, but it will only let you change to a letter not currently in use and only lets you use upper case).

[edit] HAH! just noticed that your one path is "D:" while the other one is "d;" - note the semicolon after the lower case "d" :disgusted:

 

[Jim Wilde]

Hi Jim,
wierd, isn't it? I'll get hubby onto the windows forum enquiry and let you know if they have an answer.
In the meantime, I'd like to move my whole catalog over to the Upper D folder since that's the one LR keeps re-creating.
Upper D has the following path:
"D:\Users\Brenda\Pictures\Originals\2015"

lower d has the following:
"d;\Users\Brenda\Pictures\Originals\2015"

I'd like to move everything under "Pictures" across please

Brenda

Brenda, yes we could do that, although first we'd need to clarify exactly which "drive" we need to re-assign, as I think you've got them the wrong way round (I thought the upper/top "drive" was the one with the lower-case drive letter, and the new bottom "drive" had the upper-case drive letter).

But to be honest, even doing that might not be the final fix, as I can see it happening again while that lower-case drive letter remains in the system. Something is wrong, and personally I'd be trying to get that fixed first.

 

[gpsmikey]

Assuming that is not a typo, I think the key to this whole thing is that there is a semicolon after the lower case "drive" name. That is not a legal path.