Lightroom catalogue corrupted when trying to backup - needs disk space to repair

[ChrisB_tog]

Hi guys, any help would be appreciated. I went to backup my LR catalogue (which I haven't done for 2 months!)... and I have experienced the following messages.

I have tried to clear some disk space - cleared down a lot of old catalogues and moved some raw image file folders onto my external hard drive. I now have 75gb free space on my mac (500gb internal hard drive)...It still isn't repairing? Do I need to clear more disk space or am I screwed. I realise I have been an idiot not backing up more frequently.

Thanks

Chris

[JP Hess · Accepted solution]

I don't think the disk repair feature is something that can be depended upon. It's best to have much more frequent backups to turn to. I back up on a weekly basis. Others have Lightroom configured to back up every time they close the program. 75 GB is not a lot of free space on a 500 GB hard drive. It is generally recommended that you should have at least 20% of the disk free at all times. In your situation, the hard drive should be considered full when there is 100 GB still free. I don't want to sound discouraging. But I don't see much hope for recovering that catalog. Is it located on the 500 GB hard drive?

[ChrisB_tog]

Firstly, thanks for coming back to Jim. Yes the corrupt catalog resides on the 500GB drive. I installed the latest version of LR back in September and carried out a back up on that day ...but then for one reason or another I stopped backing up regularly, think it was because I used to work late etc. I can free up more space - can go into where I keep the RAW files and move them onto my external drive and then If I get the catalog working re-synch them with LR?

[JP Hess]

If you have an external hard drive I would recommend that you put all of your images on that drive  but leave your catalog on the internal hard drive. The best way to do this would be to COPY all of your images to the external hard drive keeping them in the same folder structure that they have been in. Then "if" you are able to repair your catalog all that would be necessary would be to update the folder location in the library module and then delete the images from the internal hard drive. I haven't heard any real success stories on repairing corrupt catalogs. It might just be easier to start a new catalog and start over on all of your work.

In my opinion, you would do well to have an additional external hard drive that is used exclusively for backup purposes. If you have the Lightroom catalog on your internal drive and your images on the external drive that you have now, then I think it would be well for you have a second external hard drive dedicated to catalog backups and backups of your images. You will have to devise your own method for backing up the images because Lightroom does not do that.

[ChrisB_tog]

Hi Jim, that makes perfect sense, thanks. I did try working in the process that you just described previously - but I think I must have put the catalog on the external HD because there was a 'lag' when editing images. My MAC is 2009 and doesn't have USB3 or Thunderbolt (I think) - will this make a difference?

Thanks again for your help

Chris

www.chrisboulton.co.uk

[Jao vdL]

>My MAC is 2009 and doesn't have USB3 or Thunderbolt (I think) - will this make a difference?

Yes, that will make external drives REALLY slow. Does it at least have firewire? If it does that will be the fastest interface. Firewire external disks are probably getting hard to find though. I do completely agree that you really need backups. Mac OS makes that simple with time machine but you should also backup your catalogs seperately regularly. A simple external disk works great or you can use a networked disk if your wifi is fast or you have wired ethernet set up. That might actually be a lot faster than USB 2.

The messages you are getting make me worried that something more deeply is wrong with your internal hard disk. You should probably run Disk Utility repair on it. Just type Disk Utility in the looking glass at top right and select your internal and run repair on it. This is just to make sure.

[ChrisB_tog]

Thanks Jim, hopefully will have Firewire (at least) if not there may be an adapter I can use?..(can't afford a new Mac yet so will have to find a work around if poss).

Am also going to run the disk utility repair 

Thanks again for your help, really appreciate it

Chris

[Jao vdL]

You can still find firewire drives at amazon or macsales.com. Make sure you get one that has USB 3.0 too to future proof it. Depending on what machine you have you might be able to add an adaptor to get USB 3.0 so you can use off-the-shelf disks. If this is one of the old Mac Book Pros, you might be able to use an Expresscard adaptor to get USB 3 ports like these: Amazon.com: Sonnet USB 3.0 ExpressCard/34 (2-Ports, Macintosh/Windows) USB3-2PM-E34: Electronics . I don't know how well these work but might be worth considering if your Mac has an express card slot.

Also, if you have good wifi/network look into a network connected drive that you can backup to. There are many that work well with Macs such as the WD mycloud series or similar stuff from Synology, QNAP, Drobo and others that have time Machine compatibility.