4 Replies Latest reply: Apr 8, 2007 10:50 AM by KateMann RSS

    Moving Lr and the library to a new hard drive - help?

    KateMann Community Member
      My trusty Dell's hard drive has developed a few bad blocks and is clearly on its way out. Dell will install a new hard drive this week (hardly next day on site parts and service, but hell, it's a new hard drive).

      I will need to move the database to my backup usb drive to be reinstalled ...

      Could anyone tell me just what I should do?

      thanks in advance.
        • 1. Re: Moving Lr and the library to a new hard drive - help?
          J McWilliams Community Member
          A full back up of everything seems in order! On a Mac, you'd do a clone in such a situation. <br /> <br />But maybe you don't have enough space for everything on your USB drive. Anyway, for LR, copy over the main folder [directory] that contains .lrdb, .lrdata, and the image folders. If they're not in that main folder already, it might be wise to move them there before copying them out. <br /> <br />Good luck! <br /> <br /> <span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 204);">John "McPhotoman"</span> <font br="" /></font> color="#800000" size="2"&gt;~~ John McWilliams <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />MacBookPro 2 Ghz Intel Core Duo, G-5 Dual 1.8; Canon DSLRs
          • 2. Re: Moving Lr and the library to a new hard drive - help?
            KateMann Community Member
            Thanks John, the usb drive is 160G, contains all my data and has 40g to spare. I don't copy my photos to Lr so the Lightroom database shouldn't be all that huge?

            I'm wondering where the preferences might be ...
            • 3. Re: Moving Lr and the library to a new hard drive - help?
              J McWilliams Community Member
              There's the library file, which contain all the edits, ratings, etc, and the "data" file which contains the previews.
              b As far as I know,
              only the library file is essential; the preview file, which tends to get large, will be recreated as needed, or force-created by selecting all images and making it render previews. As I say, this is AFAIK, and it'd be nice if others can confirm this.

              Where do you keep the images?
              • 4. Re: Moving Lr and the library to a new hard drive - help?
                KateMann Community Member
                I keep my images in the same directories that I have always kept them - on the main hard drive, with a complete backup on the usb drive. So, one is external. Up to the end of 2005 I have DVDs of the original RAW. I haven't a lot of output compared to many, and I do edit my shoots considerably. I can't see minding tons of giggage, when in fact, I will probably only choose a few dozen prints a year for portfolio work.

                I import into Lr but I do not copy the file into the Lr directory.