Lightroom how to recover back up?

My computer (PC) quit, hard drive also quit before I could retrieve my light room pictures.
I have the computer backed up to a HP Simple save HD. But I can't figure out how to get the back up worksing in lightroom. I can see the pictures but no data and I can't figure out where the data is. Can somebody help? Thanks

Do you have your catalog backed up?

I can see the pictures but there is no data for the pictures. I can't move or correct them. I am not sure if the catalog was backed up. Are the pictures in the catelog or is the data in the catelog?

The changes for your images (eg exposure, contrast, curves) along with keywords and such is stored in the catalog. If you didn't back that up, and didn't configure Lightroom to write XMP files in the directories with the images, you've lost your processing.

I think you need to be more precise about your problem if you want it solved. Tell us exactly what you have, in terms of files, and show screenshots of what's not working.

k9trainer wrote in post #17264232
My computer (PC) quit, hard drive also quit before I could retrieve my light room pictures.
I have the computer backed up to a HP Simple save HD. But I can't figure out how to get the back up worksing in lightroom. I can see the pictures but no data and I can't figure out where the data is. Can somebody help? Thanks

Sorry to hear about your equipment difficulties k9 - been there, done that...it's very aggravating.

When you set up your backup instructions for the external HD did you also instruct the program to copy all of your image files (JPG, RAW, TIFF, etc.) to that drive too? If that is the case you have your original file images but you may have lost some of the edits.

Howdy k9trainer,

I think what you are looking for is the file named "Lightroom 5 Catalog.lrcat" or whatever version 5, 4, 3 etc. That is the data file with all of your edit info for each RAW image file. That file often exits under My Pictures/Lightroom and also in the My Pictures/Lightroom/Bac​kups where backups of the .Ircat file are usually automatically stored every week. Find that file and make sure that Lightroom knows where it is too .

What I see in the back up is
lightroom five catalog previews.lrdata
With that contains a zero through nine and a through F.
The only other backup I see is my room settings, it has export presets, filename templates, filter presets, keyword sets, label sets, local adjustment preset.
That's all I see
I'm starting all over now with the new computer MacBook Pro 15 this time around I'm gonna make sure I know what I'm doing so I lose all my work.

A simple system is to have LR write XMP files in the same directory as the raw files, and then make sure you have a backup of those directories.

Okay good news I was able to find the catalog data and was able to recover it. Now lights at the catalog to XMP and I was wondering will it now at the XMP to all those found files? Is there anything else I'll need to do besides back up the catalog regularly?

Oh and I have one more question, now that I have the files on my MacBook is there a way to combine the old files to the new files in light room so I don't have to open them separately?


Thanks again for your help Mark