My New Hard Drive

[Autumn]

Re my recent thread, I bought a WD My Book Essentials External Hard Drive 2 Tb and I need to get to grips with it as when I plugged it in it went berserk and started chugging away, but didn't upload my images from my Buffalo Drive until I told it to. It appeared to backup everything on my hard drive together with the buffalo drive.

I then opened up LR4 and non of my images were viewable. I checked and somehow the WD had shoved my Buffalo drive from Drive L: to Drive M: and had taken over Drive L:.

I tried to navigate to my images through WD to no avail, so I manually changed my Buffalo drive back to L: and gave M: to WD.

As soon as I did that I could see all my images again. Phew!

So now I am back to square one with a bursting Buffalo drive.

When I try to view what's inside my WD, it doesn't show as my familiar structure, this is what I get.

Is this correct. I can eventually get to a familiar structure by double clicking on WD Smartware.swsto and single clicking 3 or 4 times before it is there.

Can anyone tell me how I can make it more User friendly and how I can view my images through lightroom once again, by using WD My Book for my images.

[Ian]

Re: My New Hard Drive

I think it is best start from basics.

Where is the catalogue file for your Lightroom photos located? In Lightroom go to Edit > Catalog Settings... and it will then show the folder in which catalog is stored and the name of the catalog file (xxx.lrcat).

This location may not be the same as your actual photos.

I am not familiar with the external drive you have but it most likely has some utilities and it may have done some initialisation once first connected.

Did you copy any files to the new drive purposely?

Ian

[Autumn]

Re: My New Hard Drive

The catalogue file for Lightroom is on Computer> Documents, Music and Photographs (F: )

The actual photos are on Computer> Buffalo (L: ) My Pictures, etc.

My Hard Drive is a Western Digital My Book Essential which was recommended by Olypaul and Graham as they both use it. Pops also uses Western Digital.

I think it did some initialization. There was no user manual, just a diagram showing you how to connect it to your computer. Once connected it input software and user manual and I could see it was scanning and organizing my files into a relatively logical order. Once this was done, it showed the content and size and proceeded to copy it onto the hard drive. Once finished I realised that the Buffalo drive hadn't been scanned neither were the contents included on the WD drive.

I hit a disclosure triangle and noticed that my Buffalo drive was listed so clicked on it and it commenced backing up. This took all night - over 50,000 images! (Could have done with the USB3).

I don't really know what to do next. I would like my images to be on the WD drive (which they probably are) but I need them to appear in Lightroom4 and I don't know how to do this.

I shall then use my Buffalo drive to back up my laptop, once I am sure everything is safe.

[Patrick]

Re: My New Hard Drive

I think it is best start from basics.

Where is the catalogue file for your Lightroom photos located? In Lightroom go to Edit > Catalog Settings... and it will then show the folder in which catalog is stored and the name of the catalog file (xxx.lrcat).

This location may not be the same as your actual photos.

I am not familiar with the external drive you have but it most likely has some utilities and it may have done some initialisation once first connected.

Did you copy any files to the new drive purposely?

Ian

I'm a Western Digital user as well, I have two, a 1TB and a 2TB set up as raid giving me just the 1TB. this is my backup.

My approach would be to first check your images are on the WD drive, easily done in My computer and look into the WD drive if you are a Windows user, if you are a Mac user the go to Find, and look into the drive.

If the images are there then we can do two things. one the quick and easy way if Lightroom allows it.
Your original Buffalo drive can still be read in your Library I assume, and therefore all images can be viewed. If you now disconnect the Buffalo drive and re-open Lightroom all your images will be there but only as thumbnails and they will all have question marks against them.
If that's what you now have its all very easy. go to your Lightroom Library right click a folder and the drop-down will offer options, select update folder location, a window appears find your WD drive with all your images, select the same folder and Lightroom now knows the new location of your images, do this with all your folders and you are up and running. Lightroom will not see the same images on the Buffalo any more when or if you re connect it.

The less easy but sure way is to Clean out your Lightroom library but DO NOT select delete from disk. Then recreate your library from the WD drive in the normal way.

Patrick

[Autumn]

Re: My New Hard Drive

I think the photos are on the WD My Book Drive, but I cannot see the drive in the Library Module, even though I have closed and opened LR several times and also restarted my computer.

However, I can see My Book if I click on import! When I do that, in the import interface, it is listed there with all the other drives on my computer together with the structure of my images.

How do I get LR to recognise my My Book in the Library Module please?

Last week I could see My Book in the library module together with my Buffalo drive.

[Patrick]

Re: My New Hard Drive

I think the photos are on the WD My Book Drive, but I cannot see the drive in the Library Module, even though I have closed and opened LR several times and also restarted my computer.

However, I can see My Book if I click on import! When I do that, in the import interface, it is listed there with all the other drives on my computer together with the structure of my images.

How do I get LR to recognise my My Book in the Library Module please?

Last week I could see My Book in the library module together with my Buffalo drive.

I obviocly did not explain clearly enough.

First we must make sure the computer is seeing the WD drive, Lightroom can't do anything with the drive if the Computer can't see it.

Lightroom does not see any drives untill you tell it where they are, it dousn't work like a regular browser.

With Lightroom closed and both the Buffalo and WD connected, check in My Computer (windows), Finder (Mac) for all the drives, both Baffallo and WD should show here. If the Buffalo shows but not the WD then there is a fault it could be a bad drive or a faulty cable, try a new cable first or indeed it is seated properly. If you don't have a spare cable pinch one from another periferal. When the WD shows open it by double clicking and check the contents to see if your images are there, if not copy from the buffalo but don't try any of the fancy auto ways simply copy the file you want by copy & past. Now with all the images on your WD follow the following steps, one by one a step at a time.

1. Unplug the WD drive and ensure the Buffalo drive is connected.
2. Open Lightroom to ensure your images are showing in the library.
3. If the images show close Lightroom and unplug the Buffalo.
4. Open Lightroom your images images should still show but with question marks on each image on the film strip. If you try and open an image you get the message that Lightroom can't find the picture, this is a sign everything is working correctly.
5. Close Lightroom and re-connect the WD, open Lightroom the images will still show the question marks, and the list in the library will be greyed out and you would still get the message that Lightroom can't find the images, again quite normal at this stage.

Follow the next steps to tell Lightroom where your WD drive is.

6. In the library select from the greyed out list the folder or folders that contain your pictures, right click and fron the resulting window select " update folder location" this will show you all the drives on the computer select the WD drive and click choose, if choose is greyed out go to individually sub folder instead and select choose and the folder will be renstated in Lightroom but this time they will be active and not greyed out. Do this with all folder on the WD drive.

If all this fails or you want to start from scratch antway unplug your Buffalo & your WD , open Lightroom and clear your library of everything, this is to ensure you don't inadvertently erase your data.
Reconnect the WD. Assuming the computer can see the WD, open Lightroom and select import photos (LT3) or photo & video (LT4) go to "select source" then "other source" your WD drive should be listed in the resulting window that being so, select it and "choose" bottom right of the window, and all images will be imported to the library.

If you you have renamed your WD (mine I have named Images) that should now be visible in the library. If not it will be the default name of the drive, when you bought it.

Let me know how you get on

Patrick

[Autumn]

Re: My New Hard Drive

Thank you very much Patrick. They all appear to be there with their adjustments.

When I right clicked on the "Pictures" folder, "Update folder location" wasn't shown, (it wasn't shown on the individual folders either) but "Find folder" (or something like that) was so I clicked on that and navigated to the F: Drive which holds my images. I clicked on "Pictures" and immediately images started to appear randomly. It took about 30 minutes for all of them to appear.

The funny thing is, that now they are all there, if I right click on the folders "Update folder location" is now there together with 9 other options. Before the images appeared there were only 3 options of which "Find folder" was one.

Anyway, now I can breath again and decide what to do with my Buffalo drive 500Gb and another smaller one 250Gb. I need to back up my laptop somehow.

Once again thanks to you Patrick and to all those who offered their advice before my purchase.

[Patrick]

Re: My New Hard Drive

Thank you very much Patrick. They all appear to be there with their adjustments.

When I right clicked on the "Pictures" folder, "Update folder location" wasn't shown, (it wasn't shown on the individual folders either) but "Find folder" (or something like that) was so I clicked on that and navigated to the F: Drive which holds my images. I clicked on "Pictures" and immediately images started to appear randomly. It took about 30 minutes for all of them to appear.

The funny thing is, that now they are all there, if I right click on the folders "Update folder location" is now there together with 9 other options. Before the images appeared there were only 3 options of which "Find folder" was one.

Anyway, now I can breath again and decide what to do with my Buffalo drive 500Gb and another smaller one 250Gb. I need to back up my laptop somehow.

Once again thanks to you Patrick and to all those who offered their advice before my purchase.

Glad to be of help, it's worth remembering that if any folder is renamed Lightroom will need to be told, that's when update folder location comes into its own.
As a matter of interest I intend buying very soon a WD 4TB (contains 2 drives) to be set up as Raid 1 which is mirroring, that is one drive is copied to the other, giving 2TB of storage.
I have Thunderbolt on the iMac which is even faster than USB3 and that is fast, so I shall be getting the Thunderbolt version. All my images are on an external these days as the new iMac has a SSD very fast but limited in capacity only 250GB , which is why I want Thunderbold.

Patrick

[Autumn]

Re: My New Hard Drive

That all seems very complicated and expensive. Originally I was going for a 1 TB but then went for 2TB and you are having a 4TB. I am sure I only had 64Kb on my first computer and had to keep putting in floppy disks for the programs and to save my work to!

[Patrick]

Re: My New Hard Drive

That all seems very complicated and expensive. Originally I was going for a 1 TB but then went for 2TB and you are having a 4TB. I am sure I only had 64Kb on my first computer and had to keep putting in floppy disks for the programs and to save my work to!

Unfortunately Thunderbolt drives are more expensive, disappointingly so, it is difficult to se why, particularly as USB3 is much cheaper, but I don't have USB3 (the new iMac announced and due out soon) does have USB3 & Thunderbolt.
I have been waiting for Thunderbolt drives to drop in price, they have but not significantly, the announcement that new Intel motherboards will now have Thunderbolt might increase in demand and thus lead to lower prices due to competition, but its early days yet.
If I had USB3 I would settle for that, it is still 10 times fast than USB2, Thunderbolt is double that.
The 4TB used as Raid 1 still only stores 2TB but with a full copy in the one unit.

I remember installing Windows 98 I think it was 98 from floppy disks, there were over 26 of them.

How technology has changed things in a relatively short time.

Patrick

[Ian]

Re: My New Hard Drive

Not only do I remember Windows 95, but I used to use the version of Windows before that! And a rival system called GEM... but my first PC in 1992 was a 25MHz 486SX processor and 4MB of RAM - not sure what size the hard disk was but it was pretty small by today's standards - only a few hundred megabytes.

Before that I used Acorn gear BBC Micros, Acorn Archimedes (I used to write for several Acorn mags) and I also dabbled with Commodore Amigas. I also had an 8-bit CP/M (kind of the precursor to the PC and DOS) system running as a co-processor on my BBC Micro. Come to think of it I also ran DOS under emulation on the Archimedes

Back to the present day, another bus interface that is potentially useful and which many PCs are equipped with is eSATA; a connector for external devices connecting to the same SATA controller as the hard drive inside your PC. It sometimes comes as a dual function eSATA/USB port.

Ian

PS Audrey - has Patrick solved your problem or do you need further help?

[Patrick]

Re: My New Hard Drive

Not only do I remember Windows 95, but I used to use the version of Windows before that! And a rival system called GEM... but my first PC in 1992 was a 25MHz 486SX processor and 4MB of RAM - not sure what size the hard disk was but it was pretty small by today's standards - only a few hundred megabytes.

Before that I used Acorn gear BBC Micros, Acorn Archimedes (I used to write for several Acorn mags) and I also dabbled with Commodore Amigas. I also had an 8-bit CP/M (kind of the precursor to the PC and DOS) system running as a co-processor on my BBC Micro. Come to think of it I also ran DOS under emulation on the Archimedes

Back to the present day, another bus interface that is potentially useful and which many PCs are equipped with is eSATA; a connector for external devices connecting to the same SATA controller as the hard drive inside your PC. It sometimes comes as a dual function eSATA/USB port.

Ian

PS Audrey - has Patrick solved your problem or do you need further help?

Hi Ian
Looking back when I got a 1 GB hard drive I thought "wow"never fill this, how wrong can you be? Now we talk TB and I have a 1 TB and 2 TB (raid1 so 1 TB) almost full.

I had hoped on another note to be seeing adapters that could utilise USB3 on a Thunderbolt ports. There is of sorts from some third party manufacturers but they are also very expensive, so I feel I might as well go for the real thing. Do you know of any products in the pipe line.
I wish now I had been more patient and waited for the new iMac that will have USB3 ports, but there you go, I didn't.
According to one of Audrey's reply's she is now up and running.

Patrick

[JSR]

Re: My New Hard Drive

Not only do I remember Windows 95, but I used to use the version of Windows before that! And a rival system called GEM... but my first PC in 1992 was a 25MHz 486SX processor and 4MB of RAM - not sure what size the hard disk was but it was pretty small by today's standards - only a few hundred megabytes.

Before that I used Acorn gear BBC Micros, Acorn Archimedes (I used to write for several Acorn mags) and I also dabbled with Commodore Amigas. I also had an 8-bit CP/M (kind of the precursor to the PC and DOS) system running as a co-processor on my BBC Micro. Come to think of it I also ran DOS under emulation on the Archimedes

My oldest "working" laptop here is my Digital HiNote VP. Just 16MB RAM, 1GB HDD, Pentium 120 (I think). It's running Windows 98SE just fine (came with Win95) - no CD drive, so I had to copy the files across to the HDD and install from there. It's staggering to compare how high are the specs required for today's OSes.

My first computer, though, was our ZX81. 1K RAM. And we thought we were onto a good thing when we got the 16K RAM pack. We didn't know that we needed multiple terabytes.

[Ian]

Re: My New Hard Drive

I know we had an original Sinclair ZX80 - but I think it was borrowed. That was the bigger white design that preceded the much more popular ZX81. I never really gelled with Sinclairs and my first home micro was a BBC Model B - 32K of RAM! I had started a computer science degree course but eventually dropped out, partly because of the lure of working in photography! The first computer I had with a hard drive was an Archimedes in 1987 - the hard drive was a whopping 20MB! It frequently refused to boot when the computer was cold. The Archimedes used an ARM2 RISC processor, descendants of which now dominate the mobile phone and tablet computer world. The 32-bit ARM processor was invented by Acorn Computers after the technical team evaluated a step up from 8-bit microprocessors and decided that off the shelf 16-bit CPUs were not good enough. Sophie Wilson (then Roger Wilson) who wrote BBC Basic also designed the instructions set for the ARM RISC processor. Sophie was for a while a member of the DPNow forum as she is a keen photographer.

Ian

[Ian]

Re: My New Hard Drive

The oldest computer I still have is an Acorn RiscPC, circa 1994, the last commercially produced Acorn range - it had a 30MHz ARM610 processor and I think mine has 8MB RAM. From memory it was fitted with a 100MB hard drive. It's sitting here in my office, complete with quite a range of accessories and an original monitor. Apparently it's still worth a fair bit.

My oldest working computer is a 2002 Sony Vaio C1MHP Picture Book. It has an 8.9 inch screen but very high resolution at 1280x600. It runs XP:



I upgraded the hard drive from 30GB to 60GB. It has a fantastic screen and it's tiny too, but the Transmeta Crusoe processor was just simply too slow. I did use it regularly for 6 years though!

Ian