Problems with migrating Lightroom from one computer to another

[johns490623]

I have a MacBook Pro and am running Lightroom 6 CC on it. Earlier this year because I was experiencing some problems with the MacBook I had my Apple dealer replace the HDD with an SSD. The HDD was OK, so it was put in a USB 3.0 enclosure so that I can use it as an external drive. All the applications and data remained on the HDD, I have progressively migrated them to the SSD. In effect, I have been moving things from one computer to another.

When I tried to migrate Lightroom to the SSD I went too quickly and ended up in a mess, as shown in the attached screenshot:

The Macintosh HD is the SSD, the Macintosh HD1 is the external HDD, which I keep connected.  The year folders 2007 to 2013 have the dreaded question mark and no photos, i.e. the links are broken, although  they are to be found in the folders "Photos Library. photosli.." I can find all my photos if I keep the HDD connected. The Masters folders break down successively to the sub-folders in which the 14543 photos are grouped.

I am scared to do anything with all this until I have had some advice, as I fear making things worse. Can anyone give me some suggestions, ülease!

[Akash Sharma]

Hi johns,

I would suggest you take a backup of your catalog and take a look at this Reconnecting Missing Folders and Photos in Lightroom CC | | Peachpit

Hope that helps.

Thanks,

Akash

[AxelMatt]

Take a look here:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-photos-missing-fix/

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom/catalogs/moving/

Axel

[johns490623]

Dear Axel,

Thanks for your reply, which is very helpful, and I am making progress with solving my problem. The issue I would like to solve next is that I have two .lrcat folders, one on the HDD which has 231,2 MB which was last modified in January (when I started this migration exercise) and another, the current one which is on the SSD with 243,9 MB. I think I want to merge the catalogues - at least, I am worried that I will lose important  data if I delete the one on the HDD.

Should I merge the catalogues, and if so, how do I do it?

Again, many thanks for your help.

John

[johns490623]

AhhI I've just worked out that I think I can ignore the .lrcat folder on the HDD as I think I have established that the one on the SSD incorporates all the data from it. Which means that the problem is one of trying to restore the links and re-establishing the hierarchy of folders in a coherent way.

A first problem is with the 847 photos in the "Mobile Documents" Folder which created itself. The attached screenshot shows what a dog's breakfast that is!

Somehow 847 photos that were in a 2013 folder have found themselves into a folder tree that includes Documents/Cambridge Society/Minutes and Agendas/2013. The sub-folders are there, and I can access the images: the subfolder highlighted is 68 photos from Madeira where the link is broken. How do I correct all that?

And then I have all the photos which appear in the screenshot below - 14543 photos in Photos Library.photoslibrary /Masters where the folder references are not what I originally had

I think also that if I disconnect my external HDD I get a whole new set of link breakages, I don't want to try that just at the moment.

Can you help me, please?

John

[AxelMatt]

Hi,

here you'll find a good article about the fixing of missing links.

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-photos-missing-fix/

[dj_paige]

I think also that if I disconnect my external HDD I get a whole new set of link breakages, I don't want to try that just at the moment.

And then when you plug the external HDD back in, the link breakages go away. (Special note to Windows users: things work a little differently in Windows, if you plug the external HDD back in and it is assigned the exact same drive letter in Windows, then the linkages are fixed in Lightroom; otherwise you can change the drive letter to the exact same letter as before using Windows methods which you can be looked up in your favorite search engine)

[dj_paige]

A good solution to the original problem of apparently duplicated folders is given in reply #4 of this thread: Lightroom 4.3 Duplicate folders being created on import