Lightroom: Lost my latest edits, can I get them back?

My wife reset my pc by mistake and when I open Lightroom 5 I was getting the message: "Lightroom encountered an error when reading from its preview cache and needs to quit. Lightroom will attempt to fix this problem the next time it launches".

I read that I needed to delete the preview cache. I deleted the preview cahce and mistakenly opened the backup that was about a month old. So, the old catalog from a month ago loaded which now has left out all my uploads from this month. Is there anyway to go back to how my catalog was before the error message so I have my latest photos and edits?

Thank you for any help with this.

Not sure I follow 100% but if my understanding is correct you've opened up a backup that is about a month old. Have you tried to re-open your more recent catalog again? Are you unable to open that one? Still getting the error?

Thank you for the prompt response. The catalog from a month ago was my latest backup. This is the catalog I opened and LR is working fine, just missing my work from the time of the month old catalog to this week.

Basically, my imports from this month and edits are not in LR since I opened a month old catalog.

Thanks again.

OK. I follow you but in your post you say that you mistakenly opened up this one month old catalog. Have you attempted to simply re-open the more recent catalog after deleting the preview cache?

Your edits are safe. After deleteing the preview cache you opened a backup catalog (default location in Windows pictures > lightroom > backups) instead of your regular catalog (pictures > lightroom). In LR you just need to go to File > Open Catalog, navigate to pictures > lightroom and open the Lightroom catalog you find there.

Dan and nqjudo are right, provided all you deleted was the preview cache - a folder called "Catalog previews.lrdata" which sits alongside the catalog lrcat file. If you also deleted the lrcat, you will have no choice but to use the backup lrcat.