Changing drive letter designation to maintain tag paths?

[sailkelli]

OK, I have really worn this topic out :eek:. BUT here is a question with a new twist. Last year, I moved a bunch of tagged photos to a new drive and then renamed the drive to match the old location - the paths were exactly the same, ultimately, but the drives were actually physically different. My Organizer picked up the photos with tags without any trouble at all! OK - now this year I'm faced with a similar situation of wanting to move a whole mess of photos and maintaining the tags and organization- not wanting to do the move from withing folders view due to the large quantity of photos to move.
See this link from a year ago on the subject : http://www.elementsvillage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17926

So I thought I'd just do it the same way.

Then, I read on some thread (that I can't find again of course! :rolleyes:) that my new Elements 6 Organizer maintains the paths with an actual physical drive reference instead of just relying on a path letter. This would be great in most cases, but not if you want to do what I want to do... fool the organizer into thinking the photos are in the same place. So, I was wondering if that would mess up my method for moving tagged files.
I was also wondering if the move file in the folder view method has improved in the new Elements 6 organizer.

PS I just moved onto a new computer - moving the original hard disk that my photos were on (which maintained my drive letters) - converted my catalog after moving it onto my new computer in Elements 6- I only had Elements 5 on my last computer and decided to wait to install 6 after getting the new computer up and running. Everything went very smoothly!! no problem in the conversion. Guess I'm one of the lucky ones!:D

[johnrellis]

Yes, you read correctly: PSE 6 identifies hard drives using their volume serial number, not their drive letter. So your options for moving a large bulk of files:

- Use the PSE 6 Folder Location view to drag and drop the root folder(s) of your photos. What are your concerns about that?

- Use Windows Explorer to move the root folders. This will, of course, disconnect the files in PSE 6, and you'll need to use the Reconnect command to reconnect them. Many people are leary of Reconnect (including me) because it can be slow, the commands are confusing, some have reported issues, etc. But there's a recipe in PSE 6 for moving a whole folder tree and quickly reconnecting -- see:

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?14@@.3c060fd2/1

But even with this recipe, I'm still emotionally suspicious of Reconnect.

- Use Windows Explorer to move the root folders, but then swap the volume serial numbers of the new and old disks. This would only work if you no longer have any cataloged files left on the old disk. While fiddling with volume serial numbers has worked for me in testing and at least two other people, I really don't recommend using it unless all other methods fail to be practicable.

[sailkelli]

I'm talking about moving like 90 GB worth of photos. in my version PSE5, I moved just a few files using the folder view and lost some completely. That's why I'm afraid to use it for thousands of photos. I have never figured out where those files went or why.

I'd feel more comfortable moving my whole drive via folder view if I knew somebody else had accomplished this successfully.

I don't have all my photos on the same drive now though they are on the same physical disk. I've got to move them because - once again - I've run out of space.
I know how to reconnect fairly efficiently but haven't tried my old method with the new version since I've only had PSE6 installed for less than a week now.

Kelli

[johnrellis]

If you want to move *all* of the files in your catalog, there is another option:

- Use PSE backup/restore with the New Location - Restore Original Folder Location option. This requires that you have free disk space somewhere (e.g. on the new drive) at least two times the size of your catalog and files -- enough for the backup and then the restored folders. See this article for details:

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb402894&sliceId=1

[sailkelli]

Well the problem with that method is that I have un-cataloged images and files in the same folders and structure with the photos that are cataloged. There are far too many (uncataloged) to try to add all of them to my catalog before backing up and restoring. I know I can add unmanaged files pretty easily but I hate to put anything in withou tagging also - so that makes it extremely time consuming. At first I thought I might just go ahead and at least move the images that were cataloged, but then that would make me have to go back and try to separate all the cataloged from uncataloged in the original drive to delete just the ones that were transfered by the restore, or identify all the uncataloged to transfer with windows to their proper folders on the new drive.... not very efficient or practical.:( So I'm still thinking I'll have to move, delete and re-connect.
Still hoping to hear from somebody who has moved great numbers of files with the folder view successfully all at once. I have over 20,000 "items" in my catalog! :eek: I have so many left to add still! Not enough hours in the days.
Thanks for your ideas! :)

[johnrellis]

Using the Folder Location view to move is definitely the easiest way to go, if you can get your own confidence that it is going to work. Why not make a PSE backup of your entire catalog, try the move, and if it fails, you can restore from the backup? Again, you'd need twice as much free disk space as the current size of the catalog and files.

[NickLewis]

John,

Although a backup before doing something like this is definitely needed, I don't think that'll avoid all problems. Restoring the PSE backup will just put things back where they were before, but won't deal with the problem of any files that may have been put into places they shouldn't be by the move operation.

Kelli - I think you're backing yourself into a corner here. You want the ease of moving everything in one fell swoop, but not the attendant risk. People have posted to the forum who have moved large amounts of files successfully, both inside and outside PSE. (I'm not sure about v6) But equally people have reported problems either with a Move or a Reconnect. So you won't get absolute assurance on either. It's impossible - how well reconnect works depends on what files are where, what sizes they are, what names you've given them, etc, etc.

Personally I'd choose how you want to do it, and make the move in stages. The extra time that takes will be as nothing compared to what it'll take to sort out a real mess.

(If it were me, I'd import the unmanaged files, postpone tagging them and use Folder Location View. The idea of deliberately disconnecting my entire catalog is just anathema. But I wouldn't do it all in one go.)

Nick

[johnrellis]

No matter which method you use, doing a backup first is safest, if you can afford the disk space.. It will ensure that you don't lose files. As Nick points out, if you have to do a restore part way through, you may end up with duplicated files on the new destination, but that's better than permanently losing files because of a mistake you make or a bug in PSE.

A couple more thoughts:

- Building on Nick's suggestion, having all your photos managed in PSE will make it easier to do the move, whether you use Move commands, Reconnect, or backup/restore. Simply do a File > Get from the root folder(s) of your pictures, which will import any files not currently in your catalog in one fell swoop and show just those in the Organizer (these are the ones that weren’t being “managed”). Then make a new tag "To be tagged" and assign it to all those photos. This will make it easy to identify which photos need to be tagged down the road.

- Beware that PSE 6 introduced a serious bug in the Move command. If you try to move a photo into a folder that already has a file of the same name, the move fails and the file in the destination folder gets permanently deleted. As long as you’re moving to newly created, empty folders, this won’t trip you up.

[sailkelli]

I had the idea of creating a completely different catalog that had all the unmanaged and previously managed files in it. I could use the folder tag command and tag all the images, etc with their respective folder names. Then I could restore that to the new disk --- but that wouldn't then work with my old catalog. I'd still end up reconnecting all the files in the old catalog. But at least I'd get ALL the files moved at once using PSE. But then - is there any advantage to that over just moving the stuff using windows? I also read someplace recently that when you restore, the only tags that come across are ones written to the files. I did a full backup then went in and decided to write tags to all the images... then did an incremental backup. So, would the files that a restore command would create, have tags on them or not? I think I have the space to do the backup and move, so I'm thinking I'll try the move via the folder view and see how it goes. (in batches)

I like the idea of adding the unmanaged files and then tagging them with an Untagged photo label for dealing with in a future time.

[NickLewis]

Kelli,

If you backup and restore in PSE all your tags and everything else will be preserved. What you've been reading and getting confused about is that if you back up your photo files outside PSE, and then create a new catalog by importing them again, the only tags you will get back are the ones that have been written to files. And only if you don't shoot RAW. And you will get hardly any other Organiser content at all.

I cannot see any advantage to tagging everything with a folder name.

Moving the stuff via Windows is inviting problems. Some people get away with it, and some people have the most horrendous trouble because the result of the inevitable reconnection exercise depends on the specifics of how your files are named and stored.

Nick

[sailkelli]

OK then - I have a dilemma. As I mentioned b4 I have many unmanaged files in multiple folders, mixed in with my managed files. I want to move everything to the new disk. I guess the best way is to go to the root folder and just add all unmanaged files... will it find and add all of the subfolder files too?
I noticed that in the folder view that some folders show up that have no managed files in them. But I can't get the subfolders in these to show in the view, so I wouldn't be able to get to one of those subfolders just to add that specific unmanaged folder and its files, right? For example: So I can't just add from within the organizer one file from folder x that resides in L:\my unmanaged pictures\exceptions to the rule\folder x I'd have to add ALL the files under L: because I can't get the subfolders to display in order to select it. I don't know if I'll have this situation, but I am curious about it.:confused:
Still haven't begun my process. Should I be OK with my incremental backup (one increment only)? Should I do another full backup of my catalog before adding all the unmanaged files? It's going to be HUGE afterwards! I suppose I should do the back up after the unmanaged are managed too.

Is that a totally confusing question and scenario? :( I'm sorry to be thinking "outloud" here.

[johnrellis]

I guess the best way is to go to the root folder and just add all unmanaged files... will it find and add all of the subfolder files too?

Rather than using the Folder Location view, do File > Get Photos and Videos > From Files and Folders. Select the root folder of all the folders containing unmanaged photos, make sure Get Photos from Subfolders is checked, and make sure Automatically Fix Red Eyes and Automatically Suggest Photo Stacks is unchecked. This will import all photo files that aren’t already in your catalog.

As you’ve discovered, the Folder Location view only shows folders that contain photos already in the catalog (or folders containing such photos, or folders containing folders…).

Should I be OK with my incremental backup (one increment only)? Should I do another full backup of my catalog before adding all the unmanaged files? It's going to be HUGE afterwards! I suppose I should do the back up after the unmanaged are managed too.

Yes, I think it would be best to do the backup after you add the unmanaged photos. To be extra safe, doing a full backup would be best, if you have the disk space and patience. But doing an incremental should be ok.

[jazzfisher]

Kelli,
Nick just helped me through the move to new computer Vista/6.0--I finally got my catalog back throug the restore to original location--even though the 3 external hard disks had different drive letters. (I did rename one disk drive to match the "letter" it had been.
The most imporant thing though was that I had written all the tag/file info to every photo (File:Write Keyword Tag & properties info to photos). That way if anything did not go exactly as planned you could re-import those photos & you would have your tags already attached to them.
Good luck, oh by the way I had 50,000 photos to move...........

[sailkelli]

Hey that is really great that you got all those photos moved. I have moved about a third of mine now, cleared out all of one partition and am now working slowly on the last one to get all my photos consolidated onto one larger 310 GB partition. I'll probably run out of room there in a couple of years... if I'm lucky. But for now I'll have them in the same spot at least.
I've been moving a folder at a time through Organizer and that seems to work pretty well. I end up with some folders leaving behind an old thumbnail file from an old program behind but it's no problem to just go back and delete them.
I did the operation where you write the tags to the files... it seemed to be successful. What I didn't expect was, that because I had so many to be written to, it informed me that I wouldn't be able to undo the action. Well, I figured why would I even want to undo it?? so I went ahead and continued with the action. I didn't realize at the time is that somehow in that action (at least I am pretty sure it was that) The program duplicated every single file that it tagged and then left the duplicate file in the folders with the originals, just with a different filename, <filename>_edTMP.* So suddenly all my drives were twice as full as before and I didn't even notice until 3 weeks later when I was preparing for this giant move.:eek:
The end of the story is that I did a search using Windows to find all the files with that appended name and just deleted them... all 33,000 + ! But I just wanted to mention that possibility if you are writing tags to many files at the same time and you don't have enough memory for the undo. For what it's worth.:o

[jazzfisher]

Kelli,
Yep, I ended up deleting all those tmp files too--I thought they had come from the external drives backup software--I ended up deleting about 400 G :eek::eek::eek: from my TB for the tmp files & duplicates (yes I checked everything before deleting.)
Good luck--tell us how it goes.