Help Getting Lightroom 5 to Recognize External Drive

How do I get Lightroom to recognize my external drive while in Library mode. I need to move a dozen raw files back to their original folders. I accidentially moved them (instead of copying them) during an import and they ended up in an existing gallery with 100+ other raw files on my hard drive. Lightroom recognizes my external drive when I select Import, but not otherwise. I'm using a Mac if that matters. Thanks.

Did you actually import a file from the external drive, or cancel out of the import after seeing the drive showed up? If you import a photo from the external drive it should then show up in library mode.

Bcaps wrote in post #17673544
Did you actually import a file from the external drive, or cancel out of the import after seeing the drive showed up? If you import a photo from the external drive it should then show up in library mode.

I didn't cancel out of anything.
I actually imported (moved, not copied) a dozen files from several different folders on my external drive into an existing gallery that's saved on my hard drive.

The only way that I can view my external drive in Lightroom is by selecting Import.

As Dave said, import a photo that is on the external - any photo, you can remove it from the catalog later - using "Add". The external will then show up in Library/Folders.

I've figured it out. In order to see the folders on the external drive in Library mode, I had to click on the + sign in the folders list and add that folder to the "system". However, now another problem. I want to move files back to the original folder, but the check boxes aren't present under the individual photos when the "all photos" box is not checked. Will have to work on it later tonight. Have to run.

I guess I could just move the files using Finder and Copy/Paste on my mac, but that seems to be accepting defeat.

Larry Johnson wrote in post #17673667
I guess I could just move the files using Finder and Copy/Paste on my mac, but that seems to be accepting defeat.

Generally not a good idea to move images outside LR as it knows nothing about the change and so the images show up as lost and need to be re-linked.

Much better to just select all the images and then drag/drop them to the new location within Lightroom.

If you have a named sub-folder for a set of images you can move the folder (dragging and dropping or select the folder and then in the target "parent" folder choose the right-click Move option). If you don't have a target parent folder you can create one in Lightroom, and then do the above Move.