UKC

Hi, I am not very technically proficient but willing to have a go which is why I am in the predicament that I am now in.

Aprox 18months ago when faced with an ailing desktop I upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 8. I did a backup to a external hard drive using Windows as suggested (as well as doing a copy of work documents phew)

I had struggled to make the jump to digital but had a used a borrowed copy of Lightroom 3 to download and manage what I had done.

I am now about to get a new desktop which has spurred me to try and access the photos-which I am completely unable to do.

Has anyone got any hints on how I can reinstate the backups or on how I can access the photos which do not seem to be stored as jpegs only as Lightroom files-lrdata or preview files. I do have the original lightroom program. Obviously if this could be done as a single operation that would be great.

Any suggestions most gratefully received.

Many thanks

Rich

In reply to Solsbury:
Sounds like you do not have a backup of the photos. If they are on the external hdd then the files will be clearly visible.

If backed up by windows, then there is (v7 anyway) an option in the back up program to restore from backup. That would mean just connect the external hdd and go to the backup program and click restore files. However, I am bit lost with what you are saying, so I wouldn't just jump to that until further things are established first as further clarification is needed of what you are trying to achieve.

What do you mean by reinstate - do you mean restore photos to internal hdd from external? If so why? Where are you trying to retore to and why? (I read it that you don't have the new PC yet). Do you not still have the originals on the PC? If so are you just testing the integrity of the backup before you go to the new PC?

If you are trying to view the files stored on the external hdd via my computer then from what you have said its sounds like you do not have photos backed up but the Lightroom catalogue of them. If that's a possibility then before any attempt to restore (no need to restore if just testing the integrity of back up or you could lose the originals), check the contents of the external hdd via my computer. Lightroom does not store the photos themselves, but the link to them and the catalogue of them. If you are saying no jpegs files are visible on the disc, then they have not been backed up and I wouldn't do a restore at all.

If the photos are on the internal hdd, but not the external one, then it's a case of starting again with a backup. If all you are doing is a photo backup, then copy and paste to the external hdd maybe be the simplest. If your wanting the Lightroom cat then you would have to copy that across as well.

Sorry if I've misunderstood what you are saying.

In reply to Solsbury:

I'm guessing you've still got the photos somewhere but Lightroom has lost the location. If Lightroom has some previews cached you might be able to view some but not at full res. Is there a '?' in the corner of the photos in grid view? Click on that and it'll give you the chance to locate the file. Usually you only have to find one and LR will spot the rest.

Easiest way to find them will be to do a search for the exact file name - search box at the bottom of the windows start menu. You might have to play around with the settings as to what is included in the search.

not sure if this will help as I have no experience with lightroom but it may be useful to know that old school wild cards still work for searching for files even though most people hide them in explorer.

e.g. searching for "*.txt" finds all the plain text files. So searching on the drive for whatever extensions might help. You can even combine them if it uses more than one

e.g. searching for "*.txt OR *.doc" will pull up all text and 'Word' files.

There may be issues finding the files depending upon how account security was set up if they are in a user directory on the old installation (I read your post as though you had maybe copied the entire drive) but there are ways around that if this is the case.

In reply to Solsbury:

Hi, thanks for the replies, I have just had another play around and actually found a load of files labelled jpeg or DNG (Pentax RAW programme) They will not however open-message says either file has been deleted or saved in a location that cant be open.

Many of these pictures were imported directly from the camera using Lightroom-I thought I had set up the backups that Lightoroom prompts but had never consciously saved outside of Lightroom. I also have a feeling that Lightroom prompted me to import previous photos into it.

When I said reinstate what I meant was see.

Rich

In reply to Solsbury:

Is this in explorer or Lightroom? Which drive were they on? Not sure if you can open or vies RAW files in explorer anyway. Or they may be in a backup which has been compressed/ packaged. Can you post any file paths (locations on disc)?


When you import Lightroom saves the photos from a memory card to where you tell it to, or if they are on disc usually leaves them where they are. I think the default is to save in /My documents/photos. You should be able to get a path for the location they were saved in from the left side menu in grid view in Lightroom. My guess would be the path might be right but is looking on the wrong disc, or doesn't know they are now within another higher level folder e.g. a windows backup.

Lightroom prompted backups are typically just for your Lightroom catalog, i.e. The database, not the photos themselves.

In reply to Solsbury:
Hi, an update and reporting success, I have labouriously managed to find, open and save all my photos-phew I thought they had gone.

When I went in to the back up files (on external drive) I could see the jpegs but when I tried to open them aying they were at another location or had been deleted.

However when I copied them out of the external drive and back in to my aging computer they can be opened-magic!!

Thanks for all your suggestions'

Have a great evening all

Rich