Adobe Community: Cannot open Lightroom Catalog on External Drive

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1. b_gossweiler,

Aug 24, 2011 1:59 PM in reply to somedaymetalkpretty

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Hi somedaymetalkpretty

I suspect your external drive is formatted with the NTFS file system, which is normal for Windows, but cannot be written to by Mac. You'd have to use an external drive formatted with FAT32 if you want to use it both in Windows and Mac.

Beat

P.S: I assume your catalog (the .lrcat file) does not exceed 4GB, otherwise you'd have a problem with FAT32.

Message was edited by: b_gossweiler: Added file size limit for FAT32

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2. somedaymetalkpretty,

Aug 24, 2011 2:22 PM in reply to b_gossweiler

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I suspect you are right.

Thank you for your response.

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3. b_gossweiler,

Aug 24, 2011 2:29 PM in reply to somedaymetalkpretty

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somedaymetalkpretty wrote:

I suspect you are right.

Thank you for your response.

Try moving just the catalog file (the "[catalogname].lrcat" file) and the previews folder (the "[catalogname] Previews.lrdata" folder) to the internal drive and opening it by double click.

Beat

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4. somedaymetalkpretty,

Aug 24, 2011 3:24 PM in reply to b_gossweiler

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I did that. Lightroom opens the catalog. It does not know where the files are located. How do I redirect lightroom to the drive that contains the files.

The drive is a copy of the original in file structure so it should understand.

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5. b_gossweiler,

Aug 24, 2011 3:27 PM in reply to somedaymetalkpretty

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Right click (cmd-click on the Mac I guess) the top-level folder(s) which show a "?" right next to the name, and perform "Find missing Folder".

Beat

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6. Liza531,

Aug 24, 2011 6:54 PM in reply to somedaymetalkpretty

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Hi

I've just moved from a PC to a Mac as well and is having the same problem as the original comment:

"Lightroom cannot create a catalog named “AATKM82011” on volume “/Volumes/FreeAgent GoFlex Drive/AATKM82011” because Lightroom cannot save changes to this location."

I do understand moving the file(s) (which I have several files in this external drive) to my internal HD...so my question would be, that my external drive can not be accessed (written) unless I reformat the drive? Is this the only way for me to use this drive or is there any other way that anyone can suggest?

Thank you in advance for the help.

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7. b_gossweiler,

Aug 25, 2011 8:55 AM in reply to Liza531

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Liza,

Just to run LR, you won't have to move all the files on the external drive to the internal. Just the catalog (the "[catalogname].lrdata" file) and the previews (the "[catalogname] Previews.lrdata" folder). You can leave the images on the external just to try.

But you won't be able to write metadata back to files or move/delete images on that drive until you reformat it with FAT32 (if you want to use it in both Windows and Mac) or the Mac HFS (if it's only in use with the Mac).

Beat

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8. Liza531,

Aug 25, 2011 9:29 AM in reply to b_gossweiler

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Thank you for the help and suggestion. Since I will end up having to reformat that drive, I will have to move all my files from that drive so it can be used in both Windows and Mac)

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9. somedaymetalkpretty,

Aug 25, 2011 11:00 AM in reply to Liza531

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I ended up having to do this last night. Formatting a 2tb drive and copying all the images back takes many hours but it worked.

Thank god it required little intervention while it took place.

-good luck

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Cannot open Lightroom Catalog on External Drive

Aug 24, 2011 1:27 PM

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