Moving Elements 13 library to another internal hard drive

[ghostviking]

Hi,

My restored Elements 13 catalog points to the wrong drive!

I have recently replace my main data drive, the hard drive I store the Elements 13 catalog and library on, with a new larger HDD, now the D: drive (the OS is on C:), but kept the old one as a secondary/backup drive in the same enclosure (previously the D: drive, now E:). In order to move the Elements library to the new hard drive I have used the restore function, with move to "New location", "Restore Original Folder Structure" with D: specified as the new location. It works as it should in that it moves the library to the new drive as expected but in the catalog the photos are now listed as being on the old drive (drive E:) not the D: drive I specified. Why? Should I have used restore to "Original Location"?

[MichelBParis]

ghostviking  wrote

Hi,

My restored Elements 13 catalog points to the wrong drive!

I have recently replace my main data drive, the hard drive I store the Elements 13 catalog and library on, with a new larger HDD, now the D: drive (the OS is on C:), but kept the old one as a secondary/backup drive in the same enclosure (previously the D: drive, now E:). In order to move the Elements library to the new hard drive I have used the restore function, with move to "New location", "Restore Original Folder Structure" with D: specified as the new location. It works as it should in that it moves the library to the new drive as expected but in the catalog the photos are now listed as being on the old drive (drive E:) not the D: drive I specified. Why? Should I have used restore to "Original Location"?

Where was your catalog before the restore? In the default location in the C: drive, or on the old D: drive in a 'custom' location folder beside the image library?

You have restored the library AND catalog to the new D: drive. A new catalog folder has been copied there, that's the one you should use now.

If the catalog folder was on C:, it will still be there and point to the old drive (now E) because the original catalog has two ways to identify the drive in the catalog: the drive letter and the internal drive serial number. The internal number takes precedence over the drive letter.

[ghostviking]

Hi,

The catalog was on D:, "custom" location. When I select the new catalog on D: in manage catalogs it always points to the old location.

Forgot to mention that the new HDD is a clone of the old HDD. I had expected Elements to work straight after cloning, hadn't realised that Elements identifies the drive not just by drive number but by serial number as well. So although I had the old catalog and library on the new drive in the same structure as before the catalog still pointed to the library on the old location/drive. That's why I had to try and use restore, to make Elements see the new location.

First time I tried restore I simply let Elements overwrite the old catalog - no use. Next time I renamed the old catalog first so that Elements would recreate it, not overwrite it - no use.

[MichelBParis]

ghostviking  wrote

Hi,

The catalog was on D:, "custom" location. When I select the new catalog on D: in manage catalogs it always points to the old location.

Forgot to mention that the new HDD is a clone of the old HDD. I had expected Elements to work straight after cloning, hadn't realised that Elements identifies the drive not just by drive number but by serial number as well. So although I had the old catalog and library on the new drive in the same structure as before the catalog still pointed to the library on the old location/drive. That's why I had to try and use restore, to make Elements see the new location.

First time I tried restore I simply let Elements overwrite the old catalog - no use. Next time I renamed the old catalog first so that Elements would recreate it, not overwrite it - no use.

Cloning the drive results in the organizer being fooled as you have found. There are a number of similar cases reported in this forum. Unfortunately, this will be more frequent in the future since cloning is the common solution offered when people are migrating to an SSD drive for the (small) system drive, and its tempting to keep the old drive in the same computer.

To avoid problems linked to the internal serial number:

- do a full backup on another external drive before the cloning

- use this backup to restore on any other drive than the original one.

- you can even restore on the same external drive as the one with the backup folder if you have enough space (not ideal for speed and safety).

- You can use the old original drive for other purposes, even organizer backups.

- There is a Microsoft utility to change the drive internal number. See this paper by John R Ellis: psedbtool (Photoshop Elements Database Tool)

If I want to migrate my system to an SSD using a clone utility, my choice would be:

- to create a full backup first (always a good idea)

- use this backup to restore on another external drive.

- test the restored catalog and library on the external drive (something I am using regularly).

- Do the cloning of the system partition to the SSD.

- If I want my catalog and library on the desktop while saving space on the SSD, I would install (lke you) a new internal drive (they are affordable today) and restore the catalog and library there.

- The catalog restored in that new internal drive can be moved from the catalog manager to the default location on the C: SSD drive. Theoretically, that could bring more speed if the SSD is big enoug.

- I would re-use the older drive for other purposes, especially backups, in an external enclosure or internally if the desktop allows it...

That would  require at least two external drives (or a big one) and a cheap USB external enclosure.

Advantages: before even cloning, you are sure to have a working catalog and library on an external drive. You can share that external library and catalog with another computer having the same Organizer version.

After those steps, you have two working solutions, plus a full backup, plus room for two backups...

[ghostviking]

Hi,

Thanks for taking the time to reply but still no luck. Before cloning I did do a full backup of PSE to an external drive which was then used when restoring the catalog and library.

I have tried again and had partial success. I disconnected the old drive and did a new restore (after deleting the library and renaming the catalog). Once restored PSE did finally list the photos in the new location! But my luck was short lived; when I re-connected the old drive PSE reverted to list that as a location. It seems as if even when I restore to new location, as soon as PSE spots the drive with the old serial number it uses that location. Why can't it just register the new location as specified when restoring?

[MichelBParis]

I can't test the issue myself, but I think that the old drive is still registered in the catalog backup list of drives. My guess is that there are now two different records with the same serial number in the 'volume_table' of the sqlite database.

Your old drive seems to be 'persona non grata' in your catalog. No easy way; perhaps giving a new serial number or editing the database with external sqlite tools (if you are at ease with them)?