GreenReaper

Not a totally bad situation in that I haven't lost anything.
Here goes. I keep all of my images and on an external drive to save space on my MacBook with the catalog being kept on my internal harddrive. In the spirit of consolidation I moved a batch of document from a second HD and renamed the my main external drive. When I went to LRC to imort and move images from my camera card to my main external drive, a question mark was next to the all the folder names and I was unable to move anything. All of my original images are accessible. Any help or hints would be appreciated. I hope this is a little bit clrearer than mud. Thanks, Mike

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

When you moved and renamed things "outside of LrC" you caused LrC to lose track of where things are. Only do stuff like that from inside the Library section of LrC.

Adobe does have instructions for how to undo this disconnect but it has been so long since I saw it I don't remember the process.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Lightroom keeps an absolute reference to each image, such as c:\picture\cedarpoint2012\IMG_1234.jpg

If you change any aspect of that absolute reference, LR can no longer find the file, such as c: to d: or picture to my_picture, etc.

If all you did was change the drive name and the folders and files remain unchanged, you just have to update the LR catalog. Connect the HD and open LR. From the Library view, show the folders on the left. Go to the highest level of the folders on the HD and right-click and select option = Update Folder Location.

In the example above, if I moved my pictures from C to D, something similar to your MacBook change, I'd right-click the c:\pictures. Then, I'd use the OS navigation window and go find that folder on their current location on the renamed drive. When you <Select Folder> on this location, the update should cascade through your library resolving all the missing images.

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

Like CHG_CANON wrote - it's not the end of the world. When in Lightroom's Library Module, right click (Ctrl Click on your Mac) on the top level folder name that has your images. A flyout menu will appear that will have a choice to "Update Folder Location" - click on that and point it to the new location. No mystery, no magic. There is nothing wrong with what you did - you just forgot to update LR with the new location.

If you do not have your files organized under a parent folder, then you'll have to repeat what I recommended for each of the folders with the question marks.

Moving stuff in Finder (or Windows Explorer) is far easier and convenient than doing it in Lightroom, especially when you have a lot of files.