Workflow problem: LR 5 catalog/file clone to external drive on Macbook Air

[charlier]

Hi all -

As a professional, working in the field with a Macbook Air, I use a 2 TB external drive for all my images and all LR associated data (I call this HD, LR1). I clone LR 1 to a second HD, called LR2.  I use SuperDuper on my Macbook Air for the clone. I do not store any images or have a LR catalog on my laptop hard drive.  I even have a LR 3 (at home) as a second clone.  I backup my laptop hard drive with Time Machine.

My question concerns LR2, the cloned HD.  I opened LR on the LR2 , I can see all the previews, but to my surprise LR does not link to the original files (with the dreaded questions marks).  I suspect that LR is smarted than me, so what might I do to remedy this problem?  Suggestions are welcome.  thanks.

[ButchM]

Yes, Lr is smarter than you (and me) as the "cloned" .lrcat file is pointing to the copy of your images on the first eternal drive .... which is where you told Lr you were storing the photos ... NOT on the Lr2 drive.

Even though you did "clone" the catalog file and the associated image files ... SuperDuper (or any other backup software) does not modify the Lr catalog file to show the new backup home for your images is on a different drive ... The cloned copies can't work independently of one another without making modifications to point the Lr catalog to the copied library file to the new location of the image files using the "Find missing photos"  command.

[Schewe]

An easy way to fix this is if your images are all inside an enclosing folder...something like "Captures", when you open the catalog on LR2, all you need to do is repoint LR to your LR2 "Captures" folder to fix the directory path.

Note however, you'll need to do this every time you clone LR1 > LR2. Not good way to avoid this...

[charlier]

Thanks for the suggestions.  I will point LR to the catalog in the LR2 external drive.  I thought that I had changed the active catalog, but clearly I used this simple step.