Importing duplicates because the native files were lost

[michaelstjames_in_calgary]

I confess that I had some original photo files go missing between back-ups.  I save a back-up of the entire camera during the import process, so I have all of the unedited versions on a back-up disk.  I'd like to re-import these missing files from those back-ups and preserve the EXIF data at least.  Example: a photoshoot from last week saw 100 photos on the camera which were backed up on the external drive at the original import.  These have been pared down to 20 keepers and subsequently keyworded and sorted into collections, etc... Can these 20 get re-imported only preserving some of the data?  I realize the edits are probably gone (or are they), but I'd like to save a few hours of work.

Thanks for the advice,

Mike.

[dj_paige · Accepted solution]

DO NOT REIMPORT!!!!

Let me say that again for emphasis.

DO NOT REIMPORT!!!!

DO NOT REIMPORT!!!!

DO NOT REIMPORT!!!!

All you have to do is copy the backup (using your operating system) to the location that the original photo was located in. If you don't remember, Lightroom can tell you where it was expecting the original to be.

And I should also mention:

DO NOT REIMPORT!!!!