Merging 2 drives

[DavidHoffmanuk]

I plan to copy the contents of 2 4TB drives of images onto a new 14TB drive. If I partition the drive & keep the names of the old drives & the folder structure I think I can just swap them over (copying the hidden .pmshare file).

Could I do this without partitioning the new drive & copying to folders named as the old drives?

Thanks
David Hoffman

[Kirk Baker]

David,

I plan to copy the contents of 2 4TB drives of images onto a new 14TB drive. If I partition the drive & keep the names of the old drives & the folder structure I think I can just swap them over (copying the hidden .pmshare file).

Could I do this without partitioning the new drive & copying to folders named as the old drives?

I expect that should work (without partitioning), though make sure the two .pmshare files get copied over to the new drive.  You'll have to do a reintegrate operation to get the paths updated.

-Kirk

[DavidHoffmanuk]

David,

I plan to copy the contents of 2 4TB drives of images onto a new 14TB drive. If I partition the drive & keep the names of the old drives & the folder structure I think I can just swap them over (copying the hidden .pmshare file).

Could I do this without partitioning the new drive & copying to folders named as the old drives?

I expect that should work (without partitioning), though make sure the two .pmshare files get copied over to the new drive.  You'll have to do a reintegrate operation to get the paths updated.

Would the 2 .pmshare files each go into the top level of the respective new folders then, not the top level of the drives (as they'd have the same name)?

David

[Kirk Baker]

David,

I plan to copy the contents of 2 4TB drives of images onto a new 14TB drive. If I partition the drive & keep the names of the old drives & the folder structure I think I can just swap them over (copying the hidden .pmshare file).

Could I do this without partitioning the new drive & copying to folders named as the old drives?

I expect that should work (without partitioning), though make sure the two .pmshare files get copied over to the new drive.  You'll have to do a reintegrate operation to get the paths updated.

Would the 2 .pmshare files each go into the top level of the respective new folders then, not the top level of the drives (as they'd have the same name)?

Correct.  The two files cannot coexist at the top of the new drive.  Keep them in the folder that is now the name of what used to be a drive.

-Kirk

[DavidHoffmanuk]

I quit PM+ & copied the contents of the 2 old drives into folders with the old drive names on the new drive & added the relevant .pmshare files into the top level of each folder on the new drive.

When I restarted PM+ with only the new drive connected I see all the files on the new drive in the Navigator but shown as not in the catalog. I had hoped that they would magically be seen by PM+ as replacing the old files.

Would it be simplest for me to just add all the files on the new drive to the catalog, do a catalog sync & remove the missing files (which would be the ones on the old drives)?

If I do that should I leave the old .pmshare files where I have copied them in the new folders or remove them & let PM+ make a single new one for the whole new drive?

Thanks
David

[Kirk Baker]

David,

I quit PM+ & copied the contents of the 2 old drives into folders with the old drive names on the new drive & added the relevant .pmshare files into the top level of each folder on the new drive.

When I restarted PM+ with only the new drive connected I see all the files on the new drive in the Navigator but shown as not in the catalog. I had hoped that they would magically be seen by PM+ as replacing the old files.

Did you do the "Reintegrate Forgotten Catalog" maintenance task as I instructed earlier?

-Kirk

[DavidHoffmanuk]

Did you do the "Reintegrate Forgotten Catalog" maintenance task as I instructed earlier?

Sorry, I forgot to mention that but yes, I did. Only on that one catalog & only once.

David

[Kirk Baker]

David,

Did you do the "Reintegrate Forgotten Catalog" maintenance task as I instructed earlier?

Sorry, I forgot to mention that but yes, I did. Only on that one catalog & only once.

OK, I had hoped that it would have found everything and corrected itself, but it did not.  Your use case is outside of our tracking system's ability to resolve.  We hadn't thought of this use case during design/development.

The only other thing I think you could try is to update the folder locations.  See: https://docs.camerabits.com/support/solutions/articles/48001164434-updating-the-catalog-location-of-externally-moved-folders

If that still doesn't work, then you'll have to remove the missing items, and add the images in the two folders to the catalog.

-Kirk

[DavidHoffmanuk]

The only other thing I think you could try is to update the folder locations.  See: https://docs.camerabits.com/support/solutions/articles/48001164434-updating-the-catalog-location-of-externally-moved-folders

Wonderful! It worked like magic. All the yellow dots turned green in a fraction of a second.

I did a sync to check that all was well, that went *very* slowly. I assume that it was having to rewrite all the individual paths. Result 0 missing & a correct 16 new.

Thanks Kirk
David

[Kirk Baker]

David,

The only other thing I think you could try is to update the folder locations.  See: https://docs.camerabits.com/support/solutions/articles/48001164434-updating-the-catalog-location-of-externally-moved-folders

Wonderful! It worked like magic. All the yellow dots turned green in a fraction of a second.

I did a sync to check that all was well, that went *very* slowly. I assume that it was having to rewrite all the individual paths. Result 0 missing & a correct 16 new.

That's good to hear.  I'm glad it went well for you.

-Kirk