wannabe63 Loc: Bellevue, Washington

After processing thousands of photos in both Lightroom 5 and 6 on my windows PC I have encountered something that I'm at loss as to what to do. I have read several email chains in this forum trying to solve my problem concerning lost photos but nothing I've read addresses my specific problem. Here's the situation, several of my folders containing thousands of "processed" photos have disappeared from my library. These are not the folders that are greyed out with a question mark. These are folders that have disappeared from my library as if they never existed. I still have all the originals on my external hard drive. So all is not lost. However I don't want to start over with re-processing them after spending hundreds of hours on them originally. The process I use in importing photos into LR is to import directly from the SD card to my external hard drive. I import the photos into folders which I title each depending on the subject. After importing I will come back and select the folder I wish to work on the photos. About a week ago as I was processing some photos, all of a sudden my computer shut down and restarted. After it came back on I continued as I was before the shut down and all seemed to go ok until a day or so later when I noticed the missing folders. Not all folders went missing however. Some folders remained intact as normal. Why some are missing and why some aren't is a mystery. Which I don't care about the reasons. What I care about is recovering all my processed photos. Where could they have gone? Anyone have any ideas on how to recover these lost folders?

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

First off, computer/OS? Sorry if I missed this in a previous post.

Secondly, you say you can find the folders and the files within them. These are on your external drive, right?. Have you looked in those folders for additional images files created by LR?
--Bob

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

You still have the originals with the original filenames? If yes, when you import into Lightroom, do you do so directly from the external drive directory to a local (C Drive) folder then import into Lightroom? Greyed out images mean LR cannot locate the original files, or if the images are on an external drive the connection has been disrupted. Is there an "!" point icon on the upper right of one of the greyed out images? Click on the "!" and post a screen shot of the resulting dialogue box.

Try this: Confirm that your external drive is connected and is readable in Windows. In the Library module there is a menu option for Find all Missing Photos. Click on it and see what happens.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Lightroom normally makes backup copies of your catalog. Where are they and how are you managing them.

wannabe63 Loc: Bellevue, Washington

My processed photos are stored on an external hard drive. I looked in one of the missing folders and I didn't see any additional files.

wannabe63 Loc: Bellevue, Washington

I'm not sure where LR is storing backup photos. I never thought of that. It is a good questions as LR is backup the photos for the previous week. Any ideas where I might look?

jethro779 Loc: Tucson, AZ

Have you been creating restore points every week?

wannabe63 Loc: Bellevue, Washington

Yes. But I never thought about where they're stored. Do you have any idea?

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

Lightroom is like a really high maintenance Girlfriend, it's her way or the highway. If you move files that are managed by the LR catalog in File Explorer or Finder, she'll make you pay.
Silly analogy but true.

jethro779 Loc: Tucson, AZ

Right here is your culprit. If you didn't have a system restore point on an external hard drive you are probably p*****G up a rope.

wannabe63 Loc: Bellevue, Washington

Do you think my computer shutting down unexpectedly had anything to do with it or do you think it was coincidence. I've using LR for so long without incident and now this. I didn't move anything intentionally or, as far as I know, unintentionally.

wannabe63 Loc: Bellevue, Washington

So if one doesn't designate a restore device it will automatically go to the PC's hard drive and when my computer shut down I lost all the photos that had been stored?

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

As much as I'd love to provide you with the magic bullet to solve this one, that shut down is looking like the complete culprit. In the mid 90s I was working for an engineering firm. We had a momentary power loss in the building. Some of the systems came back up without a hitch. Others, weren't so fortunate. The interesting thing was the file names were within the appropriate folders if viewed in Explorer. Any attempt to access those files failed. Power fails, in appropriately timed shut downs can corrupt files which keep track of where things are.

Is that the problem you are experiencing? It's difficult to tell, but certainly seems to be pointing in that direction.
--Bob

wannabe63 Loc: Bellevue, Washington

I was afraid of that. Thanks for your input and time Bob.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Lightroom does not store photos. They remain independent and are where you put them. Lightroom has a catalog that stores your work, or adjustments, to those photos.

Assuming your photos didn't move, you can find the backup of the Lightroom catalog and use it. It will know where the photos are.

Assuming you have a backup of your photos somewhere and your failure made them disappear on your primary drive, you can put them back from your backup drives and then open the backup Lightroom catalog.

Step one is getting it in your head that your photos are not "in" Lightroom.
Step two is getting your original photos back where they were.
Step three is finding and opening the Lightroom catalog backup.