An Example Of Why Multiple Back-Ups Are Important

The Ospreys are returning.  First osprey I have seen this year. (click to enlarge)
Fujifilm X-T3; 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens @ 400mm; 1/1000th sec. @ f/9; ISO 500

Recently, I was looking at the folders containing my image files in the left panel of Lightroom Classic CC.  As I went down through the folders looking for a specific folder, I noticed that one folder, containing 110 images from 2014 had a question mark (?) next to it.  That question mark is Lightroom's way of telling you it doesn't know where the folder and all of its contents is located.  When I saw this, I had no idea as to what may have happened.  The folder and my images seemed to be lost!

If I right-clicked on the folder (or an image), one of the things I can ask Lightroom to do is to point me to where it is located on the hard drive.  No matter what I tried, the folder was not in any of the hard drives connected to my computer and not in the external backup hard drives (I have three copies of everything, a primary drive and 2 backups). I even searched for the file names of specific files that LR showed were in that folder to no avail. Were the images lost forever?  I was hoping not.  

This quickly turned out to be a case where something happened on my primary drive (I may have accidentally deleted the folder but I have no memory of that nor would I have consciously done that) where I keep my images and was then subsequently replicated on both of my backup hard drives.  My setup backs up my images, documents, etc. every night.  That is the worst case scenario, in my mind.  Since I just backed up my entire system a week ago, my off-site back up drive will have replicated the same issue.  Are my images gone forever?  I think I have one more chance to find this folder and image files.

In the past, I have made it a practice, when a backup drive is full and I take it out of service, to just squirrel it away in a safe place "just in case."  This was a "just in case" moment.  I went to the location of my older and no longer used backup drives and found one I took out of service in January 2017.  Since the images in question were made in 2014, they should be on this drive.  I plugged it in and there was the folder with all of the images.  I copied them to my computer's hard drive in the location of where the missing folder used to be, then opened LR and, again right-clicking the folder name and synchronized that folder with LR.  All is well.  The folder and all files are back in my LR catalog exactly where they should have been.  I still have no idea of how the folder and all of the files got deleted in the first place.

This is an example of why it is prudent to take extra precautions when it comes not only to your image files and Lightroom Catalog, but to all of your document files as well.  You never know how far in the future you will search for something and it no longer can be found in your current computer but may exist in an old backup drive that you have stored away.  I never reuse old backup drives, I keep them.  They aren't very expensive and I'd rather be safe than sorry.   In this case, my fastidious habits saved my day!

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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