Moving Elements Catalog?

[mccarts]

Hi
I am currently using Elements 3 on an older computer. I have already moved all of the Photos to an External Hardrive (Seagate). It's been working ok but, slow. So, now I would like to change the config so, that I use my laptop as the main computer. I will need to add Elements to the Laptop. (probably 6, st this point). How/or can I copy the current catalog so that I keep the tags and so forth. Also, any tips on moving the actual Hard drive? It is currently attached to the old PC via USB


Thanks
mccarts

[dj_paige]

Hi
I am currently using Elements 3 on an older computer. I have already moved all of the Photos to an External Hardrive (Seagate). It's been working ok but, slow. So, now I would like to change the config so, that I use my laptop as the main computer. I will need to add Elements to the Laptop. (probably 6, st this point). How/or can I copy the current catalog so that I keep the tags and so forth. Also, any tips on moving the actual Hard drive? It is currently attached to the old PC via USB

First, I hope you used the Move function of the Organizer to move your files to the External hard drive. If you did not (and you used Windows tools), you will need to re-connect all of the files inside the Organizer.

Next, copy the catalog to the EHD. The catalog is usually a file ending with .psa, such as My Catalog.psa

Connect the EHD to the laptop via USB, and then when you load PSE6 onto the laptop, I believe it will ask you if you have any catalogs to convert. (It may not, its been a while since I had to upgrade from one version of PSE to another). But then you should be able to select File/Catalog and click on open, find the .psa file on your EHD, double-click on that, and then PSE6 will recognize this is a PSE3 catalog and convert it for you. Your tags will remain intact. (Do NOT try to import all of your photos into PSE6, this is not the same as converting the catalog as described above and will have less desirable results)

[Karin Sue]

It is important that the external harddrive has the same drive letter assigned when it is on the new pc as it did on the old pc. Otherwise the path names will be messed up and you will get missing file, reconnect messages.

You can assign a drive letter to a removable hd using windows. I don't recall how. Last time I needed to I just used Windows help and followed the instructions.