Brow621 Loc: Texas

Must move my all data on my present hard drive to a new, larger hard drive. That will include Lightroom Five and all the one thousand or so images.

What must I do to prevent any disaster to my Lightroom program and/or the images that are connected to it?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

Moving the images is not difficult; you can move the catalogue if you must; I trust you are not saying you are planning to move the total LR Application?

This link explains how to move the catalogue and images but not the LR program.
http://www.photographybay.com/2014/01/01/how-to-transfer-a-lightroom-catalog-and-photo-library-to-a-new-computer/

tusketwedge Loc: Nova Scotia Canada

I found that the easiest way is to get a tech to do it for me. Rather pay a little than loose a lot.
I'm a firm believer that you hire a plumber to do a plumbing job,etc.etc. JMO

Mr PC Loc: Austin, TX

If you are moving to a larger hard drive within the same computer, get a copy of Acronis TrueImage, it will clone a hard drive. You end up with a perfect copy of the original hard drive, only bigger. If it's an external drive you are talking about, just copy the whole thing, everything will work fine. I'm a computer guy by trade, if you're not comfortable with either of these options, I concur, hire a pro! Good luck...

Nikon_DonB Loc: Chicago

Acronis is the way to go! :)

RJarvis Loc: Seattle, WA

I was going to also recommend cloning, but Mr. PC beat me to it. Another clone app is HDClone, a German product. Buy the "Standard" version (it's much faster than the "free" trial version). I've used it several times to move to a new or larger hard drive.

tusketwedge Loc: Nova Scotia Canada

I've been watching your thread and what I see is you spending from 45.00 plus taxes,maybe shippingalso, to whatever for something that you would probably not feel comfortable with and probably end up loosing precious images that really mean a lot to you.If so take your computor to a tech and have them do what you want done.Probably around 150.00 or so. Might be a little more than buying a program but a lot less stress and headaches ,and it will be done right.
If your really scared of loosing your images , write them to flash drives first.

bcmink Loc: Monona, WI

Here's what we don't know from your question:
1) PC or Mac platforms?
2) Desktop or Laptop?
3) Are you just migrating only the Lightroom program to a larger drive or are you upgrading the hard drive in your computer to a larger hard drive that will contain the OS and all the programs?
4) Is you new drive a raw drive or is it an external drive that is already in an external enclosure?
5) Have you ever replaced a hard drive in either a lap top or desktop computer before.

If this is a laptop in which you are replacing the existing primary drive (either PC or Mac) stop here and take your laptop to a computer technician to have the drive cloned and installed.

I'm going to assume that you purchased a replacement, drive that is not an external storage device. I'm also going to assume you are using a desktop computer and are upgrading the primary drive to a larger drive versus using the new drive as only a storage device.

As indicated herein cloning is your best option. For PC you can use True Image, Casper, or any other programs suggested thus far. For the Mac platform I've used Carbon Copy Cloner for years and never had a cloning failure. Cloning will produce an identical, bootable copy of your existing hard drive.

In a desktop, either PC or Mac, install your new drive in one of the open bays inside the case and attach the SATA and power cables. Boot to your desktop in either Mac or PC. Leave the old drive attached, don't just switch the cables to the new drive. If your new drive did not come with a SATA cable buy one.

Alternatively you can put the new drive in an external drive caddy and attach to an external plug: eSATA, Thunderbolt, Firewire, USB 2.0 or greater.

Download and install one of the cloning programs appropriate for either OS (Windows or Mac)

Open the downloaded and installed cloning program.

Be careful to pay attention to the "source" and "destination" parameters. You want to make sure the source drive is your existing hard drive and the destination is the new drive. If you've never cloned a drive before and are completely unfamiliar with the process. Do yourself a favor and take the computer and your new drive to a service center and ask them to perform the clone and install the new drive.

Once the new drive contains a clone of the old you'll have to open the computer case (if you used an external caddy to perform the clone) attach the new drive to the SATA cable and power cable if needed (sometimes the SATA cable and power have an integrated plug) When rebooting the PC you'll have to know how to access the bios configuration settings for your computer brand (look it up on the internet before hand). In the Bios you'll have to change the boot order so the new drive is the boot drive.

In the Mac world the boot loader automatically recognizes attached boot devices. You can hold down the "option" key when booting and then choose the new drive as the boot drive. Once booted you'll have to go to the "preferences menu" then "startup drive" and choose the new drive as the permanent boot drive.

Only caveat is that sometimes in the PC world you will encounter Windows registration issues when upgrading to a new drive because you have changed a variable in the hardware abstraction layer. A call to Windows Tech Support will typically solve the problem in a few minutes.

If you are only migrating the Lightroom program and all of its catalogues to a larger storage drive then ignore my instructions and follow others herein.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Back up the entire image folder, including the LR cat and preview files, to a second drive. Open LR, navigate to the new drive and open the catalog that is on that drive. Install your new drive, then copy your files and LR cat and preview files to the new drive. Open the catalog on the new drive - everything should be there and intact. I recently did the exact same thing, but my catalog had 200,000 files in it and was about 800 gb, so it took a while to move things.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

How about using something like this and copying files and folders from the old to the new?

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_35?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=external+hard+drive+docking+station&sprefix=external+hard+drive+docking+station%2Caps%2C145&rh=n%3A172282%2Ck%3Aexternal+hard+drive+docking+station

Mary Kate Loc: NYC

Bingo. For me, that is also the right answer.

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

Is should be easy. Just don't lose your LR Catalog. You have it backed up right?

I use LR as my primary cataloging program. I also use it rather than ACR. However, I also automatically write all changes to XMP files (setting per catalog preferences). That way if I need to move an image or a folder, or even reimport all images to a new Lightroom install, all of my edits will be there and not lost if the catalog goes south.

GrandmaG Loc: Flat Rock, MI

My desktop PC was hacked and the only way to fix it is to reformat the hard drive and reload all my software. Fortunately, all my pictures are backed up on an external hard drive. If you have done this too, it will be easy to just copy the folders to the new hard drive. I could have formatted the hard drive myself but would have lost all my documents (most of them were backed up but not all). I took my PC to a pro because he will save my documents. Some things are better left to the pros so I agree with that advice. I have Adobe CC so I'll be able to get that back. I just hope that I wasn't hacked through it.

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

Make sure your backup is free of virii.

GrandmaG Loc: Flat Rock, MI

Seriously? My pictures can be infected? How would I check that?