Unable to see lightroom files on internal drive

[kenw33371373]

I am running Lightroom 6 on a laptop with 2 internal drives, C &  D.  The lightroom picture files were on D & backed up to an external drive.  Now Lightroom will only see the files on the external drive, not the D drive.  I am trying to use the D drive for working on photos with the external drive for backup only.  How can I have Lightroom recognize the D drive files?  I have tried the update folder location option numerous times without success. 

[Rob_Cullen]

If the external drive is not connected (un-plugged),  do you see question marks '?' on folders in Lightroom's folder panel?

Can we see a screen-clip of the panels left of screen?

Using File Explorer/Finder, do you see all your photo files on the internal D: drive?

[kenw33371373]

Yes to item 1.

All the picture files are seen on both D & external drive.

I'm new to this process, how do I post a screen-clip?

[kenw33371373]

[Rob_Cullen]

Screen-clip is helpful.

Now close Lightroom and screen-clip the folders with your files  on the D:drive as you see them in the operating system using File Explorer. I am looking to see the file structure to compare with the Lightroom view.

I would like to know if the D:drive folders - 2013 Pics, 2014, 2015, etc,  are in a 'Master' parent folder. (My Pictures?)

[kenw33371373]

[Rob_Cullen]

First make a backup of your catalog. (to return to if problems arise)

Set your Catalog Settings   [Ctrl+Alt+, ]   to { Backup the Catalog every time Lr exits}

Do not move or rename anything with File Explorer.

In Lightroom-

Right click on the folder-  "Pictures"  shown with 8814 photos  on the My Book Duo (L:)

From the menu that opens- choose "Update folder Location"

File explorer will open a window where you can navigate to the D:drive and the folder "Pictures" on Data D: just under 'My Documents'

With this folder selected, click on the button [Select Folder]

Now Lightroom will be referencing the folders ("Pictures" and below) on D:drive,  but there will still be some inconsistencies because the folder structures on both drives may not be identical.

You will need further advice to tidy up these.

[kenw33371373]

[kenw33371373]

Do I go ahead & merge?  I have tried this before without success.

[Just Shoot Me]

Did you read my post above? I gave you a suggestion on how to solve your current problem. I think Merging would be a Very BAD idea.

You do not want the Backed up copies of your images in the LR catalog. Back ups of images are just that, Back Ups, and should never be included in the catalog database.

[kenw33371373]

Did exactly as you said, this is what I got;

[Just Shoot Me]

Right click on the Pictures folder, Top Folder, on the External drive, the one with the question mark on it, and select Update Folder Location then browse to your D drive and select the Pictures folder.

[kenw33371373]

OK, did that

[Just Shoot Me]

Sorry I'm at a loss. So I guess Merge is your only option.

I must say that no drives or folders show up in LR unless you imported images from them. So you probably didn't use Windows File Explorer to move or copy your images to that external drive. You more than likely did it inside of LR and that is why your external drive is where LR is looking for all of your images.

What happens if you select the D drive Picture folder and right click then select Synchronize? Try that and post back with what dialog box comes up and what is listed in that dialog box. Post a screen shot of it.

[kenw33371373]

This is what I get, don't understand how it comes up with 25,511 photos when there are only 8812 on the drive.

[Rob_Cullen]

Before you continue- I think we are going to need much more detailed information from you about your file structure on both the External and the internal D:drive.

I think that "Synchronize" is a bad choice, until you can sort out the current situation as it is.

Importing more photos by Synchronizing (from -who knows where!) is only going to magnify your problems greatly.

Your current catalog is showing 8812 photos-  yes that is the 8812 Lr knows about having been imported.

(Lightroom does not show all folders like a file browser- it only shows folders containing images you have in the library catalog.)

Do you know if you have more than 8812 CAMERA photos in your computer?

The 25511 number will depend on which folder you asked to synchronize, and which Drive?- and if that was the top-most folder, there might be Windows system folders on the drive with thousands of images. This would not be good in the catalog.

[kenw33371373]

Good morning & thanks to everyone for their input, I appreciate that people will take their own valuable time to help me.

Some history;  purchased a laptop last summer to replace my desktop.  Migrated Lightroom to the laptop & everything was fine until the laptop started having problems & eventually was returned to DELL where they replaced the hard drive & wiped everything clean.  When I received the laptop back & tried to restore the Lightroom files, I obviously screwed up badly.  So bad that when I look at the pictures file on the external drive, it shows 34,729 files & 8796 folders.  The D drive shows 31,986 files & 4188 folders.  There appears to be  many duplicate images.

So, the question now is how do I recover from this mess I have created?

[kenw33371373]

In addition, there are different photos that have the same identification number, for instance IMG 1022 & IMG 1022-2 that are two different pictures entirely.  

[Rob_Cullen]

I do see you are having great difficulty.

I might ask- How important to you is it that your editing work in Lightroom is preserved?

If - "Not important", it might be best to start over from scratch and re-build, first your files on the computer & drives, then the Lightroom Catalog.

and if you knew a local knowledgeable 'Lightroom' person that could work beside you, that would be a help. (any camera clubs nearby?)

If you were to go down this route (Start-over) then my thoughts might be-

1. Make a backup copy of the Lightroom catalog, exit Lr.

2. Using the operating system (File Explorer) Consolidate all your photo files on your drive of choice and run a 'duplicate finder' to tidy those  "-2" files out of the system.

3. Run Lightroom, and 'Remove' all photos:-   choose to view 'All Photographs' in the Catalog panel, Select all (Ctrl+A),  Press [Delete] and choose "Remove" and Confirm "Remove" (Do NOT "Delete from Disk")  You are left with an empty catalog, but all your keywords are preserved.

4. Import all your photos from the (re-constucted hard-drive) using the [ADD] option above the import window.

5. Then back to editing.

{I would be happy for JSM and others to reply with comments (pro or con) }

[kenw33371373]

Thanks for the suggestion, it is probably what I will do.  However, the pics with the -2 number are not duplicates, they are totally different pics. I have used several SD cards & the numbers must have overlapped, don't know how to address that.

[Rob_Cullen]

Ok, so do not 'tidy' or delete any '-2' files.

If you decide to do the refresh catalog thing, then do the steps in post#23 above, without step-2

Using the 'ADD' Import option will import all your files leaving them in the folders exactly where they now exist.

Remove the check from [Don't import suspected duplicates] will allow Lr to import duplicated files, but you can tidy those up in Lightroom later. And start to tidy up folders also in Lightroom (never using Explorer!!)

[kenw33371373]

OK, that sounds like the plan.

Thanks for the help.

[Just Shoot Me]

I just wanted to see what Synchronize brought up. Click the Cancel button.

Something is either very wrong or you have not explained everything you did and what program and steps you took in the process of trying to back Up your image files.

[Rob_Cullen]

Thanks for helping with the conversation JSM.

Update folder location or find missing folder from the Right Click context menu. Point it to the internal drive and to the top level folder and or drive that holds your images on the internal D drive.

I see this advice as basically the same as mine.

And why would 'Merge' be a bad idea?  The op is putting the Lr links back to the D:drive where some folders are the same obviously.

[Just Shoot Me]

Exactly How did you Back up your images. Did you try to do it in Lightroom? If you did what might of happened is you Moved and or Copied them over and in doing that told LR to start using the external drive as the main image storage location (IE Linked all the images on the external to the LR catalog).