How to Reconnect files with a new drive name

[PreceptTeacher]

I sure hope somebody has an easy way to handle this problem.
I just got a new laptop (running Vista) and I moved over my PSE5 catalog to it. I figured everything would be fine because, after all, all my files are on an EHD and they didn't move. Well, the catalog made it over OK but all my files are disconnected! They are disconnected because on my old system the EHD was drive E and on my new computer the drive is now called G, so the names do not match up exactly. I can't rename the drive back to E because that is already used for something else. Yes, I know that I can do a reconnect with the files one at a time, but I have around 20,000 (I am not exaggerating) entries because this is my catalog with all my digital scrapbooking supplies. I have an extensive tagging structure set up as well, so I don't want to create a new catalog and import all those files unless I can also bring the tags and collections over as well. I've tried doing a "Reconnect all" and Organizer just keeps crashing. Arrgghhh! Please tell me there is some magic way that I can start up the reconnect and walk away, come back hours later (or days later, I really don't care at this point) and everything will be all done and I won't have to have surgery for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from reconnecting those files one by one!
Help!!!!:eek:

[troush]

Oh, this is the hard thing...

Okay, do you have MS Access? The catalog is just a Microsoft Access database. Some people have been able to use MS Access to read the .psa file and then use it to change the drive letters. If you post over at the adobe forums, I'm sure someone will offer to do the change for you if you ask.

What "something else" is named "E"? You could disconnect your external, change your "E" to "G". Then, connect your external and name it "E". But, it will depend what your "E" is. If it's a DVD/CD player, it probably won't be a problem. If it's a partition on the internal hard drive, then that is trickier.

-Trish

[PreceptTeacher]

I had thought about renaming the drive when I was working LATE last night, but thought I couldn't do that since the drive letter was already in use. It turns out that drive is for removable media - a camera card plug in I think. Since I always use the USB cable to move my pictures into my computer I decided to give it a whirl. (Though I am warned that some programs that work with the predefined drive name may not work now.) At any rate, I named it the "S" drive for now and I renamed my EHD to "E". Once I took my computer down and brought it back up (PSE still couldn't find the stuff correctly until I did that) everything worked great. I still have to scroll through all the pages of photos to get the actual thumbnail to show up instead of the famous question mark, but hey, that is SO MUCH EASIER than what I was doing before.
You saved me hours and hours and hours of work. (I was even thinking about re-importing all the files into a new catalog and retagging everything as being quicker than reconnecting! UGH!!
Blessings to you and have a FABULOUS day. (I know I will!):p

[troush]

Sounds like it is rebuilding the thumbnail cache. You could select all (ctrl-A) and then right click and choose "Update Thumbnails" and then leave it for a while (maybe overnight). The other thing I would do is a File->Catalog->Recover.

-Trish