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upgrading and moving a huge catalogue (92 gigs)

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hilli

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Joined
Dec 3, 2011
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27
Lightroom Experience
Intermediate
I am new here, and am frustraing myself reading threads and watchng videos on how to best deal with moving my catalogue to a new drive, then upgrading it to lightroom 3..

the catalogue is 92 gigs, with 115,000 images. i have discarded all 1:1 previews and optimized the catalogue and it is backed up.
my understanding is that exporting the catalogue is the only way it will preserve the collections and presets.

when i try to export the catalogue it quotes the number of images, and virtual copies, but tells me the drive i chose is not available.. i am looking at the folder i made for it to be exported to, on that drive, so i dont understand why it wont let it proceed,

I have unclicked the negatives and the previews so when lightroom 3 imports the catalogue it will generate its own previews.

method 2: I assume that asking LR3 to make an new catalogue at the beginning , then asking it to import, it will be attempting to import and upgrade all the thumbnails at the same time.. is this method preferable??

is there another way of doing this?

I am running vista 64 bit and t rying to move the catalogue out of drive c to an internal raid, then upgrade to LR3.

a solution will be much appreciated.
thanks
 
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Simply copy or move the catalogue using Explorer - you really don't need to export it.

John
 
its that easy? LOL thanks! will do that. should i copy the whole thing or just the LR cat? ( Ive been watching too many tutorials) copying just the LRcat would make life a whole lot faster!
 
Hi Hilli, welcome to the forum!

Are you needing to move all of the photos, as well as the catalog? If so, you might want to take a preparatory step of setting the Folders panel up as a hierarchy, if it's not already, so that you can relink the parent folder when you get to the new drive letter. If you need more info, just ask.
 
Thanks for the welcome Victoria!
no, I am leaving the pictures where they are... all spread out on various mirror raid external drives. that part is fine.

Tutorials i find have been a mixed bag of information, and after a month of procrastination I finally got up the nerve to try the export method, and it didn't work. In further reading I am not sure if i needed to 'select all' even though I was on 'all photographs' in order to perform the task. that may have been the reason for the error message.

the mixed messages I am getting are with regards to the previews.. I know lightroom will take the entire catalogue and upgrade it ( I did that already in the laptop), but since i want to move a large catalogue, I had misgivings about the time involved with moving 92 gigs worth of previews when i learned that lightroom will build its own version of them anyway.,

I would like my collections to still be part of the catalogue as well as the presets. I'm not srue if i need to resinstall the presets.

in any case, I am about to try the copy/paste method of the LRcat file only and see what happens.

wish me luck!
 
update.... it is generating thumbnails as we speak! I finally bit the bullet and copied the LR cat file only... the sequence that followed was pretty much a guessing game as none of it was as straight forward as any tutorial or video described.. in any case, I did it!

it seems as if the collections are still there, but i don't want to disturb it until finished to see if the develop presets are there.

many thanks for the courage to proceed!

oops, not all is paradise.. I checked on the folder with the catalogues and it made a new folder but by the same name as the old one, so now i have double everything. I suppose i can rename those later?
lots of missing thumbnails with question marks so far.

I guess all is not lost, i can try again I suppose.

if I've missed something. please let me know.
thanks
 
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Your presets and templates aren't stored in the catalogue itself. If you go into Preferences, there's a button that takes you to their folder.

John
 
Although if you have 'Store Presets with Catalog' set in your Preferences (Presets Tab) then there would have been a Lightroom Settings sub-folder alongside the catalog which you will need to move to the same position in the new catalog location. Otherwise you will have lost any user presets that you have created.

If that setting is unchecked, there should be no issues with your presets as they would be in the default location and unaffected by the catalog move.
 
hello folks.. I seem to be up and running... everything seems to be intact, except maybe the thumbnails from drives that arent plugged in.
i dont know what i did wrong on the import that made two catalogues by the same name, but one is larger than the other so i dont think its an issue..I can delete the smaller ones.
renaming the folders is another challenge for me. I havent researched that yet.

WHAT a difference!!!
 
Are you sure there are two catalogs with the same name? If the catalog name was something like Lightroom 3 Catalog.lrcat, then the associated previews folder called Lightroom 3 Catalog Previews.lrdata will have been automatically created. Also when Lightroom is active there will be two associated temporary files automatically created (and deleted again when Lightroom exits)....these will be called Lightroom 3 Catalog.lrcat.lock and Lightroom 3 Catalog.lrcat-journal.
 
yes, for sure there are two by the same name.. I sort of half followed some video instructions i saw that said to make a place on the new drive for the lightroom catalogues.
then i copy/pasted the LR2 cat into that, but named it LR2catalogue upgrade so i wouldnt be confused.. ( understatement) :)
Then i tried asking lightroom to make a new catalogue which i didnt understand at all, and can't actually remember if I finally clicked update the existing catalogue and pointed to that new one. hence the two matching names.

they are made at different times so easy to see which is which... now, do i start over or do i delete #1 and rename #2?

who would think it could be messed up so quickly?? :rolleyes:
when editing it asks if i want to update the whole thumbnail strip to the new system or just that one. so far I have only doe a few single ones to feel my way around.
 
lr3 catalogue .JPG here is the list.. its easy to tell which is which.

I lost what i wrote so here goes again.. i think i ended up checking update existing catalogue becasue i got confused asking lightroom to make a new catalogue. should i start over?
 
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If you copied your LR2 catalog to the new drive, and then upgraded to LR3 and allowed LR3 to upgrade the LR2 catalog then yes that is the expected result. The file named Lightroom 2 Catalog-2.lrcat is in fact your new LR3 catalog. If that is confusing, you can simply rename the catalog to whatever you want....you just have to rename the associated previews sub-folder as well. For example, if you wanted to call your new LR3 catalog something like "My LR3 Catalog.lrcat", then you would rename the previews folder to be "My LR3 Catalog Previews.lrdata". You would of course do those renames while LR was shut down.
 
:) Thanks, that's what I figured, but wasn't sure how to rename it. that shouldn't be too difficult.. if you hear a howl from Canada you will know I did something wrong.
Fear definitely stands in the way when tackling this job>
I really appreciate having you folks standing in the wings to rescue me!
 
Looks like you are doing just fine hilli........... your researching and asking before taking action. most take action and ask for help cleaning up a mess after!!:rolleyes:
 
thanks. it seems to be working fine.. the folders are renamed.. some things seem fast, and finding other little surprises in the develop module, but nothing i cant cope with.

what i found most with tutorials is that there are too many variables. no really explicit 'how' to do's in step form. whoever is giving the tutorial is obviously far advanced from the person trying to execute it. a lot is left up to the imagination. Certain 'given's for an advanced user still need to be learned by a novice. I'm not a novice, but I am definitly not advanced and i still couldnt understand it all..
Thanks for looking and for everyone's help!!

ps: case closed.. :grin:
 
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