Catalog does not recognize external hard drive.

[madventer]

I had a problem with viewing the colors on my laptop when moving the screen around, and decided to save all my files on an external hard drive so I could use either the laptop or my PC to work on pages. (Is this practical or not?)

I manually moved all my Srapping files (8Gb) from my PC to an external hard drive E: within Organizer. I also added some photos with a small zip drive in drive F:, which I think confused everything.

Everything was working fine until I removed the External harddrive and reconnected it. The harddrive now shows as F: drive and not E:, and none of my files are connected, exept for the few photos I added. I tried reconnecting the files, but because the files are saved as E: it does not recocnize anything because my ex. hard drive now shows up as F:. It's asking me to put in a disc, and I'm not working with discs.

I tried rebooting, using different ports but nothing is working.
Please help and tell me what I did wrong.!!
Madeline

[troush]

Not sure... If you are using Windows XP, go to the Control Panel and choose Administrative tools, and then Computer Management. On that screen, choose "Disk Managment." You should see your drive(s) listed on the right hand side. Right click on the zip drive and choose Change Drive Letter and partitions and change the letter to G. Then right click on your External and change it to E. Then change your zip drive to F. Make sure Elements is closed when you do this. Maybe even reboot. Then, restart the organizer and see if it doesn't see everything. You may have to do a Reconnect Missing Files.

If you are using Vista, I don't know how to change this.

-Trish

[madventer]

Trish,
Thanks for the help, I use Windows XP. Do I close and detach my External Hard drive while doing this? Which one is the zip drive? I'm really scared that I will mess up, my PC knowledge is limited.

This is what I have in Disk Management:
Disk O: Sys C:
Disk 1: Removable E: (Empty)
Disk 2: WP Passport F: (Ext.Hard Drive)
CD Rom O: DVD D: (Empty)

Thanks,
Madeline

[troush]

Looks like Disk 2 is your external, and disk 1 is your zip. Do this while they are connected.

-Trish

[madventer]

I tried changing the drives. The zip has the option to change, but Disk2 F: only has Properties and Help options. I'm lost here.

[troush]

Well, now that you've changed the zip drive, try rebooting your computer and see if the ext. harddrive fills into the E slot now...

-Trish

[mom2bandc]

madventer,
I had the same issue when I first moved all of my files to my external drive. Now I don't ever remove my external with my photos for fear that it will relabel my drive with a different letter. Trish's instructions should work but if not try rebooting with only your external drive connected. It should default to E. It was a scary time for me & I thought I would never work it out but now even my catalogs are stored on my external drive! I now have 3 external drives connected and don't have any issues with drive letters changing when I reboot.

[madventer]

Thanks for all the help, I tried all the advice but my hard drive does not want to change back to E:
I'll start over and store everything on my C: drive and not move it again.
Thanks again!!

[troush]

Sorry that didn't work for you. Sometimes windows can be picky...

-Trish

[jodys]

Just a note, When I format my external drives I give them names like "scrapbooking",or "pictures" then when I move them between computers, they show up as names and don't compete for letter assignments. This also helps me to remember what is on each drive for quick reference.

[madventer]

Good point! I restored my catalog yesterday, all on C:, rebooted and then got the message my F: disk was unstable. I then did a disk cleanup and defrag on this disk. Perhaps if I did this earlier it would have helped and saved me many hours of work!

[sueboop]

Not sure... If you are using Windows XP, go to the Control Panel and choose Administrative tools, and then Computer Management. On that screen, choose "Disk Managment." You should see your drive(s) listed on the right hand side. Right click on the zip drive and choose Change Drive Letter and partitions and change the letter to G. Then right click on your External and change it to E. Then change your zip drive to F. Make sure Elements is closed when you do this. Maybe even reboot. Then, restart the organizer and see if it doesn't see everything. You may have to do a Reconnect Missing Files.

If you are using Vista, I don't know how to change this.

-Trish

I saw a thread on this forum that said something about putting the catalog on the EHD. Since I have a laptop, I really liked that idea. I had the problem of the two computers had different letters for the same EHD. The one it worked correctly on was XP (desktop). I tried these steps on the Vista (laptop) and it worked the same way or close enough to it that I could figure it out and I am not a computer person. Now the EHD works correctly on both computers. Thanks for your help.