Lightroom Query

[ReeRay]

I am using an Imac with a 500 GB SSD drive and I have my Lightroom 4 catalogue on a Western Digital external drive which has functioned perfectly for many years. However this drive has started to "groan" and for fear of it's imminent demise I acquired a newer WD 14 TB model. Initially I plugged in the WD 14, copied over the images and the Lightroom "tree" identified the new drive and all was functioning. However the newer drive was not functioning as a Time Machine backup and indeed suddenly disappeared from my desktop when I selected it from the TM preferences and could not be located. Searching the net stated the data on the drive had been corrupted (somehow) and needed erasing, converting the drive to Fat 32 which I did and the drive reappeared and married with Time Machine for backups. So far so good. I then re-copied over the images from the ailing drive for both my LR catalogue and Capture One catalogue. The later identified the new drive and catalogue but not so in LR. The new drive is not visible in the LR 'tree" as it was previously.

 

I attempted to create a new catalogue identifying the location of the images and now see this problem:-

 

"Lightroom cannot create a catalog named “WD 14 LR Cat” on volume “/Volumes/My Book 14/WD 14 LR Cat” because Lightroom cannot save changes to this location.

Lightroom Catalogs can not be opened on network volumes, removable storage, or read only volumes".

 

This sounds weird as have always been on an external removable drive!

 

Help - I'm stuck. Any advise please

 

Thanks

[Allan Bell]

Are you using LR4 or is it just the old LR4 catalogue you are talking about?

 

Allan

 

[ReeRay]

11 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

Are you using LR4 or is it just the old LR4 catalogue you are talking about?

 

Allan

 

Both

 

[MDM]

I suspect that the problem is due to formatting the disk as FAT32 which is a Windows format, mainly used on Macs for compatibility with Windows and not intended as a working drive format. You don't mention which version of MacOS  or the age of the computer but I would suggest reformatting the drive as Mac OS Extended and see what happens. I don't know why you are having a problem with Time Machine. What format was the drive in when you tried to use it for Time Machine - likely a Windows format which is the default for many external drives? The reformat as Mac OS Extended might solve that problem as well.

 

EDIT - there is no problem having a LR catalog on an external drive and the images on another external drive even but it is best to have the catalog on a fast drive (SSD) if possible for best performance. 

Edited March 6, 2022 by MDM

[ReeRay]

16 minutes ago, MDM said:

I suspect that the problem is due to formatting the disk as FAT32 which is a Windows format, mainly used on Macs for compatibility with Windows and not intended as a working drive format. You don't mention which version of MacOS  or the age of the computer but I would suggest reformatting the drive as Mac OS Extended and see what happens. I don't know why you are having a problem with Time Machine. What format was the drive in when you tried to use it for Time Machine - likely a Windows format which is the default for many external drives? The reformat as Mac OS Extended might solve that problem as well.

 

EDIT - there is no problem having a LR catalog on an external drive and the images on another external drive even but it is best to have the catalog on a fast drive (SSD) if possible for best performance. 

Thanks for the response. I have now found a work around by right click an image in LR from the old drive and pointing to the new drive which now shows in LR. I am now importing all the images from the new drive. A bit slow but it's working

[MDM]

21 minutes ago, ReeRay said:

Thanks for the response. I have now found a work around by right click an image in LR from the old drive and pointing to the new drive which now shows in LR. I am now importing all the images from the new drive. A bit slow but it's working

 

I'm not clear what you are doing now - presumably using your old catalog (on internal drive?) rather than creating a new one on the new disk which was the problem in your original post. I think performance might suffer using a FAT32 file system rather than a native Mac system but maybe not enough to be a problem?

[ReeRay]

6 minutes ago, MDM said:

 

I'm not clear what you are doing now - presumably using your old catalog (on internal drive?) rather than creating a new one on the new disk which was the problem in your original post. I think performance might suffer using a FAT32 file system rather than a native Mac system but maybe not enough to be a problem?

Basically I've redirected the old disk images in LR to the new disk. What was the initial problem was I could not see the new disk in LR. I now can and am importing all the saved images which are on the new disk - hope this makes sense.

[MDM]

8 minutes ago, ReeRay said:

Basically I've redirected the old disk images in LR to the new disk. What was the initial problem was I could not see the new disk in LR. I now can and am importing all the saved images which are on the new disk - hope this makes sense.

 

It makes sense but it is not exactly the problem you mentioned in your initial post in relation to creating a catalog on the new drive. Using FAT32 as your disk format may not be ideal either but it's working so best of luck with it.

[M.Chapman]

I share MDM's concerns. Using FAT32 on a 14TB drive??? The maximum partition size FAT32 can handle is 2TB  (or 8TB?) and the maximum file size if 4GB. If you want the best compatibility with both Windows and Mac systems then format as ExFAT. If you only need to use with Mac then use Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

 

Mark

Edited March 6, 2022 by M.Chapman

[MDM]

4 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

I share MDMs concerns. Using FAT32 on a 14TB drive??? The maximum partition size FAT32 can handle is 2TB  (or 8TB?) and the maximum file size if 4GB. If you want the best compatibility with both Windows and Mac systems then format as ExFAT. If you only need to use with Mac then use Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

 

Mark

 

I don't know how he managed to format as FAT32 as it is not an option in Disk Utility nowadays - an old MacOS presumably. I suspect the initial problems with Time Machine might have been due to the disk being formatted for Windows when purchased. He has made no mention of needing Windows compatibility so a better option would probably be to reformat the drive as Mac OS Extended and start again with the file copying. 

[sb photos]

14 minutes ago, MDM said:

 

I don't know how he managed to format as FAT32 as it is not an option in Disk Utility nowadays - an old MacOS presumably. I suspect the initial problems with Time Machine might have been due to the disk being formatted for Windows when purchased. He has made no mention of needing Windows compatibility so a better option would probably be to reformat the drive as Mac OS Extended and start again with the file copying. 

 

Correct. Additionally a FAT32 initialised drive will read and write painfully slow when used with a Mac.

[ReeRay]

Hi all - point taken and now format is Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

 

Thanks for all your help - very much appreciated