Recovering Organizer Catalog

[digipix]

I just downloaded photos usin PSE into a folder for my wife's photos instead of my normal download destination. When I opened Organizer the catalog was just the photos that were in my wife's file and another folder that was in my personal photo file folders. The photo file history only went back to the first of the month. It appears that I may have lost the catalog of all my other photos dating back three or more years including all the tags that were assigned. This is thousands of photos. :(

I am hoping the older catalog is still there somewhere. I have been to File>Catalog and there is only one catalog listed which is the current one with just recent photos. I attempted Recover but that just gave me the same current catalog.

Can anyone help me rescue the old catalog? Or if not possible, how can I re-catalog all the photos in my Pictures files? I hate the thought of have to re-tag them all, but that may be my only choice.

[troush]

Hmmm, the first thing is to check your settings. Make sure you are truly viewing all pictures. Go to the lower left and choose Folder View. Also, if you choose date view/calendar view, can you find your pictures?

-Trish

[digipix]

"Folder location" is selected and Date View only reveals the recent photos.
When I navigate to the "Pictures" folder in the left pane and click on it the following message appears..."The folder being renamed contains files that are not visible in the organizer. Are you sure you want to rename this folder?"

I should add that I upgraded to Vista a few days ago.

[troush]

I don't have Vista. Perhaps posting over at the Adobe support forums you would find someone who had some other ideas. I know sometimes people have had problems with the Media type that was selected (I think it is in the preferences somewhere). But other than that, I don't know where to begin.

Do you have the 5.0.2 update?

-Trish

[digipix]

No, I just have 5.0...The updates link is greyed out.

[troush]

You need to go to the adobe website and get the 5.0.2 update. Go here (http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3569) and click on the Proceed to download button.

-Trish

[digipix]

Found the update on Adobe site and have installed. Thanks for the heads up.

[troush]

Great. If you continue to have problems, check out the adobe forums for support - someone there can probably help you.

-Trish

[digipix]

Great. If you continue to have problems, check out the adobe forums for support - someone there can probably help you.

-Trish
With help from a number of forums, Organizer now recognizes my thousands of photos and tags. The following, while a little long, explains the process in hopes that it will benefit others who are upgrading from XP to Vista.

When Upgrading from XP to Vista, Microsoft recommends using Vista's Easy Transfer. There are two or three ways to do this and there is a good description in Vista for each of the methods. Easy Transfer transfers files, settings, etc., but not the applications. I transferred via my network hub. It appears to have transferred everything in PSE except the My Catalog.psa that was on my XP box. To my dismay, Organizer did not have my thousands of photos and related tags that were on my old XP box. I discovered that My Catalog.psa on the Vista machine contained only the new photos uploaded after the upgrade.

My Catalog.psa in XP is at the following location C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Catalogs\My Catalog.psa. This is a hidden folder and you have to enable viewing hidden files and folders via Explorer Tools>Folder Options>View. I copied the XP My Catalog.psa to my thumb drive renamed it "My Catalog-XP.psa" and copied it to the following location on the Vista machine: C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Catalogs. The final directory is then C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Catalogs\My Catalog.psa-XP. Then I opened Organizer and opened the new catalog and found my photos and tags. I did have to do some reconnecting of photos.

A tip for those just upgrading to Vista with PSE. You may not want to upload new photos to the Organizer before you are sure that the My Catalog.psa has moved over from XP. PSE will create a new My Catalog.psa that will contain only those newly uploaded photos. If you do however, simply go to File>Get Photos>From Files and Folders and then navigate to the folders with the newer uploads and then click on Get Photos. After insuring your newer photos are moved into your My Catalog-XP.psa, you can then delete the Vista created My Catalog.psa file and then rename the remaining catalog if you wish.

FYI, if you are moving your catalog from one XP computer to another XP computer, Adobe has a technical document at http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=333522

Credit must go to Nick and Barb on the Adobe User Forum and the PhotoshopElementsUser.com user forum for their sage counsel as I worked through this issue.