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Post by muskokan on Oct 29, 2015 20:24:01 GMT
I successfully restored my catalog to a new laptop using advice gained here. Yah! but unfortunately I had problems with Windows 10 and had to revert to Windows 7.
Now I have the catalog on an EHD and the thumbnails are all loaded. But the Organizer gives the location as the catalog file for each photo! And the files are only 72 resolution. Somehow it has lost track of 10 years worth of Organizing. The tags are present, but I can not use the Folder location or the location under the Information panel in order to locate the photo.
I know the first question is "what did you do?" Honestly at this point I no longer know. I have installed and re-installed so many times I'm lost.
If anyone has a suggestion of what I could try to get the connections back I would sure be thrilled.
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Post by michelb on Oct 29, 2015 21:11:08 GMT
I successfully restored my catalog to a new laptop using advice gained here. Yah! but unfortunately I had problems with Windows 10 and had to revert to Windows 7. Now I have the catalog on an EHD and the thumbnails are all loaded. But the Organizer gives the location as the catalog file for each photo! And the files are only 72 resolution. Somehow it has lost track of 10 years worth of Organizing. The tags are present, but I can not use the Folder location or the location under the Information panel in order to locate the photo. I know the first question is "what did you do?" Honestly at this point I no longer know. I have installed and re-installed so many times I'm lost. If anyone has a suggestion of what I could try to get the connections back I would sure be thrilled. My suggestion is first to understand where your picture files are physically. The 'Reconnecting' task will come afterwards. Even if you don't recall the details of what you did, you most probably know on which drive they are supposed to be? It seems logical that you did a backup (where?) and a restore (where again?). Chances are that your backup folder is still somewhere on an external drive. If it is, it can still be used for restoring. The restore may have been directed to the main drive of the new compute or on an external drive. In any case, if you know the name of a picture file in your library, you can do an explorer search in your drives to find its location. It may require some time, but eventually that will work. About the location of those picture files in your catalog: you should find the full path of any of your pictures in the Information panel, but if you are going to need a 'reconnect', you won't use that information anyway, it's just to understand the problem. I'll be there tomorrow... don't panic! |
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Post by muskokan on Oct 30, 2015 7:21:40 GMT
Thank you for the reassurance. I have done some investigation and it appears that the picture information is still there, so i can use the date to locate the file.
I had backed up my Organizer to an EHD , in fact to 2 EHDs. I restored it after switching to Windows 7 from 10, to another smaller EHD (to prepare for travel.)
You are right that I do know where the actual picture files are stored. They have their own EHD. Now that I have found I can discocer the file info in Editor I do not feel so bad.
The weird thing is that when I go to either the folder panel or the Information panel it shows them all as located in MY Catalog on the drive where it is situated.
At this point I guess I won't try to reconnect them all bit by bit. I will just have to go back to the original each time in order to edit it, right?
I think I have the same situation as someone else reported. I have now got folders organized by date but without the separate drive that it used to show. So I guess it dumped them all together, even though I chose "Retain folder structure".
Anyway, I am over my panic now and will just have to carry on with this as is.
Thanks for being there, it is so wonderful to have someone to call on when all seems lost.
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Sue
Junior Forum Member
Learn something new every day
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Post by Sue on Oct 30, 2015 10:06:05 GMT
Have you tried doing another restore and making sure everything is pointed correctly? That would save you lots of time and frustration. I am assuming you are using PSE backup and restore, is that correct?
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Sue
Junior Forum Member
Learn something new every day
Posts: 132
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Post by Sue on Oct 30, 2015 10:06:52 GMT
Have you tried doing another restore and making sure everything is pointed correctly? That would save you lots of time and frustration. I am assuming you are using PSE backup and restore, is that correct?
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Post by muskokan on Oct 30, 2015 17:40:33 GMT
Do you mean to back up the current catalog as it is and then restore to the present location?
So I would do a Back up from within Organizer to another EHD. Could I then choose Restore with original file structure. I would need it to go back to the EHD where it is presently located.
So do I need to choose Original location? If so I don't think retain original file structure is an option.
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Sue
Junior Forum Member
Learn something new every day
Posts: 132
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Post by Sue on Oct 30, 2015 18:37:36 GMT
No-No-No. Take your original backup, before everything went to pieces and do a restore. For now, use a different location. If everything is fine, then you have at least a good copy, maybe not the way you want it but viable. If this works, then you can do a restore back to where you want it with the original file structure.
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Post by muskokan on Oct 30, 2015 20:03:42 GMT
Tried that. It is still the same.
I have decided i can live with it as is.
Thanks for the feedback.
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Sue
Junior Forum Member
Learn something new every day
Posts: 132
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Post by Sue on Oct 30, 2015 22:38:51 GMT
Oh well, have fun.....................
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Sue
Junior Forum Member
Learn something new every day
Posts: 132
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Post by Sue on Oct 30, 2015 22:40:39 GMT
Another thought, did you write your tags to the metadata? If so, you could import them all and at least get the correct tags. It won't be neat but it will be a step.
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Post by Andy on Oct 31, 2015 1:11:07 GMT
muskokan - It is important to understand that the Organizer catalog and how images appear in the catalog are not related to how the images are stored on your computer. You can have the Organizer display the images in different ways, regardless of how they are stored. The catalog is separate from the pictures.
When you say you backed up your catalog - if you used the built in PSE Organizer backup function, that backs up the catalog and the pictures. So you say your photos were originally on an EHD. If you backed up your catalog, then restored it, then the photos themselves were restored to whatever location you chose. You might have duplicate images now- the original ones on the EHD, and the one in the location you restored to.
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Post by muskokan on Nov 2, 2015 3:06:52 GMT
Wow, I did not uerstand that at all. Thank you very much.
so I have been backing up through the built in PSE Organizer. I did not realize that the photos were backed up there too, I thought it was just the thumbnails in the catalog. So I have been triple backing up my photos, since I also do them on a DVD.
No wonder the catalog takes so much memory after 10 years. I will now focus on weeding out some old photos and in future will try to keep only the best photos.
thanks so much for your explanation, I appreciate the help.
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Post by Andy on Nov 3, 2015 1:01:32 GMT
No wonder the catalog takes so much memory after 10 years. I will now focus on weeding out some old photos and in future will try to keep only the best photos. I'm not sure I understand the comment about the catalog and memory. I wouldn't start getting rid of any photos yet. |
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buessi
New Forum Member
Moved from PSE9 to PSE13, then briefly to PSE16 and now have updated to PSE21. Cleared up a lot.
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Post by buessi on Nov 10, 2015 14:53:30 GMT
I have a similar problem. After reinstalling Windows 7, the catalog file resident at the default location (ProgramData/Adobe/) was wiped out. Fortunately, I had saved a copy of the catalog.pse9db file on another partition drive. Once I figured that out and placed the file back into its proper place, all Organizer aspects were returned as I hoped. However, now all file info is preceded by [Data] followed by the proper file string for the photo. Organizer tells me that all images are 'offline'.
Using Reconnect does not get me anything. Nor does relinking (because it's not missing a linkage). I am sure others face the same dilemma when moving between hard drives or EHDs. Does Photoshop Elements have a more elegant solution, other than learning SQL?
I want to fix this before moving the entire large album to PSE13, which I have installed but not yet used.
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Post by michelb on Nov 10, 2015 15:38:17 GMT
I have a similar problem. After reinstalling Windows 7, the catalog file resident at the default location (ProgramData/Adobe/) was wiped out. Fortunately, I had saved a copy of the catalog.pse9db file on another partition drive. Once I figured that out and placed the file back into its proper place, all Organizer aspects were returned as I hoped. However, now all file info is preceded by [Data] followed by the proper file string for the photo. Organizer tells me that all images are 'offline'. Using Reconnect does not get me anything. Nor does relinking (because it's not missing a linkage). I am sure others face the same dilemma when moving between hard drives or EHDs. Does Photoshop Elements have a more elegant solution, other than learning SQL? I want to fix this before moving the entire large album to PSE13, which I have installed but not yet used. The problem looks similar... but not quite. A few comments first: If you only save the catalog.pse9db file, you don't save everything in your catalog, only the main database. If you create a new folder with the catalog name you want and place that pse9db file, that will work with litte loss, like face recognition. If you put the pse9db file within the 'Catalogs' default location, I expect there will be problems. Reinstalling Windows 7 in the same drive should not wipe your catalogs in your ProgramData folder. What is different from the many cases I have met is that you get a message for 'offline' media files. The usual situation is to meet 'disconnected' files. I assume your media files are still in the same drive they have always been. I'd like to check: - how the information given by the menu Help > System Information says your catalog is situated - and an example of the path given for a supposed 'offline' media file. One thing to try: create a new empty folder like 'testcatal' where you want, but outside of the media files master folder. Put the catalog.pse9db there. Open the organizer with the new catalog by double clicking on the catalog.pse9db file. Do you get the same problem? |
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