Unable to recover any catalog

[bhcraine]

Using Lightroom 4.4, I have many backup catalogs; each time I try to open one it shows as corrupted, and it the program is unable to repair any one of them.  I believe I did something very stupid [with thanks to Norton Tech Support]:  I deleted the appdata files, and I believe that is what's causing my problem.  Does anyone have a solution?  Because of computer changes, got caught in the middle, with no backup of the appdata files.  Can I recover catalogs without the corresponding appdata?

[dj_paige]

each time I try to open one it shows as corrupted

Why do you say this? What exactly happens? If there is an error message, please quote the exact complete unedited word-for-word error message.

I am not really sure what "appdata" you are talking about, could you be more specific? Deleting any files on your computer will not cause Lightroom catalogs to be corrupted; the worst that could happen by deleting files is that Lightroom itself would need to be re-installed (depending on what files you deleted, of course). Of course, the corruption, if that's what you are seeing, could come from other possible causes.

[bhcraine · Accepted solution]

DJ:

Thanks for the response; happily, spent a lot of time, but I was able to recover the database.  As best as I can tell, the appdata deletions did not affect the challenges.  I just kept working at it, including the reinstall of Lightroom . . . and I recovered everything.  Sorry, I should have posted, but I definitely appreciate your efforts to help.