Using external HD in Ligstro 2.3

[henk]

Hi everyone. I want to use data HD I have, and import them into LR.
Hardware configuration:
PC with win XP pro 64 bit
i7, 940  processor with 12 Gb RAM DDR3
1 HD for OS ( C:\ drive ) and 1HD , 1 terabyte as data HD ( D:\ drive ), for my projects on hand and some old once not yet exported.
In the front of my PC I have a HD bay in which I can put a HD in a cradle. I have 8 cradles with HD’s, which contain all my  Digital “ negatives “ from before LR. Each cradle has the name “Photo drive 01 to 08 “, which appears also in windows explorer.

This cradle always gets the E drive letter assigned by the system when in use. And this is my problem. What I hoped was that LR would set up a “disk directory” in the Folders section, for each HD so I could see the contend AND know on which HD the selected photo is. Unfortunately this is not the case. LR creates directories with the appropriate names as on the HD’s but puts them all in the same “space”.
What I end up with is all directories from all external HD in one space without informing about the HD name. This is a useless situation because this does not tell me which HD to mount to get to the appropriate photo.
I have chosen for this system because I now can keep my assets ( 8 cradles and growing) in a save place and only get them out when needed. This extends the lifetime off the HD tremendously. The problem would be solved if LR could import the total HD under its name. I then would end up with 8 directories  “Photo drive 01 to 08 “, with sub directories.
Any help or suggestions?

Thanks Henk

[henk]

Using external HD in Ligstro 2.3

Should be: Using external HD in Lightroom 2.3

Strange typo!!

Sorry, Henk

[jpegman]

There is a freeware utility called usbdlm  (USB Drive Letter Management) which may help for your situation. It requires you to input specific info about each cradle it allows you to set the drive letter based on multiple criteria such as volume label or size etc. If each drive was given a unique letter based on its label or serial number then LR should see them as all different?

The 300Kb application can be found at

http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/...e-dissapointed/


A friend was having trouble with the his pc assigning the usb drives the wrong letter then syncs would get messed up, and found this utility. It sounds like it should solve your problem

From the website:

USBDLM can for newly attached USB drives

check if the letter is used by a network share of the currently logged on user and assign the next letter that is really available
reserve letters, so they are not used for local drives
assign a letter from a list of new default letters, also dependent on many different criteria as the active user, drive type, connection (USB, FireWire), USB port, volume label, size and others
assign letters for a specific USB drive by putting an INI file on the drive
remove the drive letters of card readers until a card is inserted
show a balloon tip with the assigned drive letter(s)
define autorun events depending on many different criteria
many other things, see help file, available online as HTML version too

jpegman

[henk]

Thanks jpegman,
Interesting software and I think I have a solution. Yesterday after dinner, brainstorming with my wife, we came to a satisfactory solution. I will create on each HD a directory with the exact name as the HD. Then take all the image directories and put them in this directory. This will take 2 seconds. Importing in LR, I will end up with 8 directory names. Although not perfect I can live with this.  I have not tested this but will tomorrow.
Henk