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Lightroom can't see my external hard drives.

New Here ,
Jun 22, 2017 Jun 22, 2017

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The external hard drive I have had for a year has been filled up so I bought a new one. I have both attached to my MacBook (thunderbolt display if that makes a difference} I now have the dreaded ! on all the images on the old drive but I didn't do anything other than eject it. I've read various fix suggestions but none of them seem to work.  Any help will be gratefully accepted, preferably in very simple terms.  Thank you.

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Jun 22, 2017 Jun 22, 2017

yes it may have everything to do with you renaming the drives. Click on an exclamation point and when Lr tells you where the previous location is and do you want to update it say yes and navigate to the finder, to the drive, to the folder, to the image and select it.

Alternatively you can change the drive names back to what they were and then restart Lr.

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LEGEND ,
Jun 22, 2017 Jun 22, 2017

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Does each external drive have a different name? Did you re-connect after ejecting? Are both shown in Finder? If so, quit Lightroom and try relaunching the application while both drives are connected.

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Community Expert ,
Jun 22, 2017 Jun 22, 2017

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Plug the drive back in. The exclamation points and question marks will go away.

If you haven't made smart previews of your images Lr will display exclamation points and question marks when the external drive that your images are on is disconnected. If you want to keep the images on that old drive and continue to work on them you will need to create smart previews.

Once you connect the drive again you will see a green light (rectangle in the left column by the name of the drive. It will not be green as soon as you disconnect again.

What is your intention with the new drive? Will you copy all of your images to the new drive and archive the old one? If yes then you'll want to keep the file naming and file structure the same. You'll need to update the folder location and remove reference to the old drive.

This might be helfpul... How to Move Your Lightroom Photos to Another Hard Drive - Terry White's Tech Blog

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New Here ,
Jun 22, 2017 Jun 22, 2017

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I have disconnected both drives, quit lightroom, reconnected drives, launched lightroom but the problem remains.

My intention (unless you tell me otherwise) is not to transfer anything but just to start using the new drive in the same way but with a different name. I can see a green light on the new hard drive but not the old one. So far there is only one image on the new drive but it still has a question mark on it.

Marie

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Community Expert ,
Jun 22, 2017 Jun 22, 2017

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If you cannot see the green light it signals that your old drive is not connected.  I might be a hardware problem.  Can you see the old drive using Finder?

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New Here ,
Jun 22, 2017 Jun 22, 2017

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Could it be anything to do with renaming the drives? I’ve lost both hard drives now.

Both drives are connected.

Marie

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Community Expert ,
Jun 22, 2017 Jun 22, 2017

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yes it may have everything to do with you renaming the drives. Click on an exclamation point and when Lr tells you where the previous location is and do you want to update it say yes and navigate to the finder, to the drive, to the folder, to the image and select it.

Alternatively you can change the drive names back to what they were and then restart Lr.

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Community Expert ,
Jun 22, 2017 Jun 22, 2017

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99jon asked if you are able to see both drives in your finder? If you can't mount the old drive on your desktop that is another problem and you may need to go to Disk Utility (find it by searching in the spotlight) to get the system to recognize it. If your old drive has died you will have to be careful so that you don't lose everything on it. Do you have all of the contents backed up to the cloud or somewhere else? You might also have a loose or bad cable.

How old is this drive and how full is it? You generally don't want to fill a drive to 100% capacity. They are mechanical devices and eventually will fail.

Also you didn't say whether you rebooted your computer when you disconnected and reconnected your drives.

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New Here ,
Jun 22, 2017 Jun 22, 2017

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One drive is a year old and it was pretty full, the other one is new.I can see both drives in finder.

I can see all my files on the old drive. I’ve rebooted the computer. I can’t see the drives in disk utility.Still no green lights next to the drives.

Marie

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LEGEND ,
Jun 22, 2017 Jun 22, 2017

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If you have re-named the drives you will have to tell Lightroom to update the catalog.

If the new drive has a green light, the old may display a red light if nearly full.

In the LR Library folders panel select a top level folder with question mark (right-click or control-click) and choose “Update Folder Location” and then navigate to the newly named drive and choose the top level folder with the images. Repeat for both drives. LR should automatically update the links and the explanation marks and question marks will disappear.

See section 2 at Ian’s link below:

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

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New Here ,
Jun 22, 2017 Jun 22, 2017

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Im really sorry but none of this is making any sense at all. I tried to do something and now Lightroom isn’t seeing either of the drives but they are still visible in Finder. I think I need to talk to somebody rather than emailing.

Marie

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LEGEND ,
Jun 22, 2017 Jun 22, 2017

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To contact Adobe directly click the link below.

  1. Choose Account Issues
  2. Choose Adobe ID and signing in
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and choose - Show me my contact options
  4. Click Chat

https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/support.html

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New Here ,
Jun 22, 2017 Jun 22, 2017

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Thank you I will keep that info safe. I have sorted one problem, I think the other one will be easier.

Marie.

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