• Please use real names.

    Greetings to all who have registered to OPF and those guests taking a look around. Please use real names. Registrations with fictitious names will not be processed. REAL NAMES ONLY will be processed

    Firstname Lastname

    Register

    We are a courteous and supportive community. No need to hide behind an alia. If you have a genuine need for privacy/secrecy then let me know!
  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

iMac with problems

Antonio Correia

Well-known member
The disk inside my iMac is with some problems and I am going to replace it for a SSD one which is far faster - so they say - with much more capacity.

I have some 20.000 images running from inside the machine and from disk B (one I can take everywhere) all backed-up in disk A (another one I can take everywhere).

I do have quite a few Catalogues of capital importance to my hole work. Some have been exported along with the original files but others haven't.

Now that I am going to have a brand new disk I will have all the setting and presets erased and probably the catalogues even if I Synchronize the folders.

Exporting the Collections is rather risky and time consuming.

I wouldn't like to take the chance of losing everything of part of it.

Any tip please ? Thank you. :)
i-SFNhsFc-X2.png
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Hi Antonio
I don't have much time (will have more tomorrow).
In the meantime, if you've not moved files already, nothing is lost, your setting and presets can be easily restored.
The only thing I don't know about is catalogue as I don't use that feature…
If not too late I'll come back with more info tomorrow…

Joyeux Noël !
 

Antonio Correia

Well-known member
Thank you Nicolas.
It is not too late. At least until now LOL

I am going to find a way to recover presets and customized items as well as books marks from Chrome the stupid way: screen captures and files stored in Google Drive.

Regarding LR I will export the catalogue and import it back into the new machine praying to god - if ever he exists - that everything will be fine.

Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année ! :)

i-NHcD7jt-X3.png
 
Hello Antonio

Here is a link for locations for settings and presets in Lightroom 5: http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/preference-file-locations-lightroom-41.html

Otherwise, I would think exporting as a catalogue would retain everything.

If you have a disk caddy that takes 3.5" disks you could use that after replacing the hard drive to copy files from the old drive in the case where you find you have forgotten to transfer something.

A couple more comments that might be useful in a future similar situation. I use Acronis for backup. That has a facility to restore a (backed up) computer image even to a dissimilar disk.

I also have a probably unusual backup facility. I have two SSDs because I replaced one when I thought it was failing but it was a hardware problem. One is a clone of the other (again something you can do with Acronis, I don't know about other programs). This means that if my SSD fails, I can simply swap the other one back in, update software, then clone it back or to a new SSD.

I presume an iMac has a single disk (I use a PC). One advantage of a computer with several disks is that you can have your data files on a separate disk to your system and program files.
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Hi again Antonio
Murray's advice to install your "old" hd in a caddie is a pretty good advice.
In fact this is what I wanted to point out to you for 2 reasons :
1- You'll have a cheap new external disk to store whatever you wish, just be careful to choose a caddy that is compliant with your new iMac, if possible, get a USB3 which is must faster than USB (2), I doubt you can find one with Firewire 800…

2- before erasing it, you may get some files back to your new computer, but, magic of Apple you can use the small app utility named "Migration assistant" (or some name alike) and have all your user's settings copy to the right place on the new computer… very handy !

assistantMigration.jpg

In French, but I know you read French ;)

Also you may get back a folder named "Lightroom" stored somewhere on your previous HD, copy it anywhere you wish on your knew HD and thru LR prefs, point to it: you'll have all your "by default" settings plus your own home cooked!
To tell you the truth, mine is stored in my Dropbox, so I have the same updated settings on my home computer, MacBook and Mac Pro!

Amitiés

Boule1100.jpg

Lazy Christmas iPhone stuff

Have a nice experience with your new machine !
 

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
From my experience, there is no need to export the Lightroom Catalogue - - - just copy it to another drive. I don't know if it makes a difference or not. But I can run my Lightroom Catalogue from any copy of the hard drive.

One reason that I never store my images on hard drives in my computers is for the very issues that you are facing. My work files are ALWAYS stored on external hard drives and only program files are on my internal hard drive.

For the last few years I have been using external 2 1/2 inch drives and this year very fast USB3 transfer on the drives. I keep all of my travel files in ONE LR CATALOGUE where it and all files are stored on a 2 TB drive - - - same with my professional portrait and wedding work where the ONE LR CATALOGUE and all files are stored on an external hard drive dedicated to storing that data.

My travel catalogue is currently handling around 40,000 image files for the recent years that I want to have with me while traveling. My professional wedding portrait catalogue contains far more images. I keep a complete copy of all of these in case I have requests for prints while traveling. Final Cut Pro Video Projects are all stored in a similar organized manner on external drives.

I have external 2TB backup drives for each of my Travel and Professional files with me - - - these are periodically backed up by dragging and dropping from the Work Drive. I also have a 3'rd hard drive backup of each at home in Canada that is updated when I return.


To save the Presets with your Catalogue on an external drive, Go into Lightroom Preferences and under Presets tab click the box to allow storing of the Presets with your Hard Drive:


lr1.jpg

This is how my Travel External Drive is Organized - it also shows the Lightroom Catalogue folder in the right panel, that contains Lightroom Settings:

lr2.jpg

As far as Google and Safari and Youtube Bookmarks, History and whatnot, I just let my Mac stuff all get updated and synced automatically. Whatever I add or change on one, is instantly updated on any Mac or iPad device that I have. I used to find them and save them and manually update to a new computer - - - no longer need to worry about that.

Hope all goes well with your transfer.
 
Robert and Antonio

I don't think it will work to set Lightroom to Store Presets with Catalogue.

I just tried changing that setting to true and next time I ran Lightroom all my Export presets were gone. I reset it to false, reopened Lightroom and they were all back again.

Therefore that setting will save new presets to the catalogue but it won't retain existing ones.
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator

As far as Google and Safari and Youtube Bookmarks, History and whatnot, I just let my Mac stuff all get updated and synced automatically.

These (and others) will be restored easily while using the migration tool, AFAIRemember, you may get your "old" profile completely restored to your new computer.
 

Antonio Correia

Well-known member
Thank you all for your kind replies.
After such an important amount of information here is what I think and I am going to do.

Today in the morning I called the office where I will make the change of the disk.
I was told that they will replace the internal disk for a SSD one, a Samsung.
However, to have another one with the same speed and performance - another SSD - out of the computer that will not be possible
To back up to an external USB3, yes that will be possible but at a slower speed.

The solution of Nicolas is a good one but I don't want to be subscribed to Dropbox, Google or whatever, neither buy back-up software as Murray pointed. Stingy guy I am !

Some money must be spent of course...
"...One reason that I never store my images on hard drives in my computers is for the very issues that you are facing. My work files are ALWAYS stored on external hard drives and only program files are on my internal hard drive..."

Yes Robert you are absolutely right and that is what I have been doing for some time now. At least all images from last years are all outside. In the computer I have (had) some files from 2014, the last 4 or 6 months or so.
All the others are "outside" in 2 other drives as I mentioned before.

Robert you do have a simple but sophisticated system for backing up your entire work. I do perfectly understand how you do it and found it to be an excellent, clever and practical way.

I had the same issue as mentioned by Murray and agree with Nicolas that it will be possible using the migration tool.

Thank you all again for your kind help. Very useful !
Next Monday the 29 December is the day !

I will tell you what happened ! :)
 

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
Robert and Antonio

I don't think it will work to set Lightroom to Store Presets with Catalogue.

I just tried changing that setting to true and next time I ran Lightroom all my Export presets were gone. I reset it to false, reopened Lightroom and they were all back again.

Therefore that setting will save new presets to the catalogue but it won't retain existing ones.

You are correct. I found the same thing to be true this morning.
 
There might be another solution. I use Acronis because it can back up files, back up a computer image and clone disks. When I started using it, Windows was not able to do these things but now can (though maybe not clone a disk). I understand Time Machine on the Mac can back up a computer image as well as files.

However, I do not know whether Time Machine can restore an image to a different disk (I don't think Windows can). I am presuming you are intending to start from scratch and install all your software on the new disk. In my experience, this can take quite some time. However if it is possible to restore a computer image this may not be necessary (and for my PC it takes about 15 minutes).

If the new disk comes with a more recent operating system there is then the question of whether the OEM license allows reinstalling to that image and whether that can happen without losing any files.

If you have an old computer image from before your current disk started playing up, you could try that. Otherwise perhaps you could try an image from your current disk as it is. It might work OK but otherwise you'd have to reformat and start again which I presume is where you are now. You first would need to ensure you have the license to reformat the new disk with the operating system you require. You'd also have to confirm with Apple the practicalities of these possibilities or perhaps someone else here will know.

I also have a new Samsung SSD. Mine is a 256GB 850 Pro. My research indicated that they currently appear to be the best available
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Murray,
Time machine can restore an entire disk, (there are EOM license with Macs and OS X).
However doing this you copy all old fashioned files from previous OS Xs and misc SW.
My experience (I use Macs since 1984!) is to install a brand news latest software (which is generally done by Apple before delivering.
Then use the migration tool to restore softwares (clean that folder first!) and user's account.
Everything from the previous user will be restored on the new Mac.
So 1st thing to do before changing the HD is
to delete unwanted old software(s), run disk utility and "repair permissions" (an Unix thing).
to delete any folder that one doesn't need to be copied later.
Have the disk changed
Have the old HD in a caddy so you can connect it later, because you'll need that to use the migration tool. It is much faster than Time Machine and I'm not sure that Time Machine will run/copy on another computer with another serial #.
And Yes Antonio, this will do a good back-up disk, not as fast as a SSD, but still you have it!
Then connect the old HD to the new Mac
Run the migration tool (which will correct the permissions for the files on the new disk) and restore whatever you want.
All single files will be there, no need to print copies and get a bunch of settings to restore manually with all risks to forget some…
At last I would run on the new disk the "repair permission" thing.
Of course in order to be able to do this you must do it from a "Administrator" account.
Now Antonio is set and can handle his new comp.
 

Antonio Correia

Well-known member
Thank you Murray and Nicolas for your very detailed explanation and time spent on this matter.

The software I have is not very difficult to re-install. I use the usual ones for photography with Nik plug ins and not much more: Mac Family Tree, Firefox, Safari, Adobe Reader, Blurb, iTunes, Spyke, a key generator and the apps from Apple.
Yosemite software comes with a few apps which are enough for what I do.

When I need some text or spreadsheet I go to the Google drive where I have double identification system BTW.

I am more worried about important little settings like color space for LR and for CS which can have impact on the final prints.

The printer and the profile for the paper is easy to install.

Perhaps I have been exaggerating - what perhaps is, due to the small amount of software - a simple operation...

Tomorrow - Sunday - I will make a folder with the presets for LR and upload them into the Google Drive.

I have already moved all the files from the internal disk to an external one. I will at the last minute, make a back up catalog from LR and save it also in the Google Drive.
 
Top