Today’s Question: We just replaced an external hard drive with a new larger drive. The old hard drive is called “LaCie 2 Big”. I want to call the new one “Master Drive”. How do we change the name on the new drive without losing photos and info in Lightroom Classic?
Tim’s Quick Answer: You can rename the drive on Macintosh (or change the drive letter on Windows) through the operating system, and then use the “Find Missing Folder” command in Lightroom Classic to reconnect the top-level folder associated with your photo storage.
More Detail: Under normal circumstances, you should make all changes related to your folder structure from within Lightroom Classic, not through the operating system. However, if you need or want to change the address for a hard drive (via the volume label on Macintosh or drive letter on Windows) that needs to be done outside of Lightroom Classic.
When migrating to a new drive the first step is to copy everything from the existing drive to the new drive, making sure to match the folder structure perfectly. You can use a temporary backup job with software such as GoodSync (https://www.timgreyphoto.com/goodsync), for example, to help ensure this step is performed accurately and completely.
You can then disconnect the existing drive and make sure the new drive is connected, updating the volume label or drive letter as desired for that drive. This, of course, will cause all folders and photos to be missing in Lightroom Classic.
At this point you simply need to reconnect the hard drive within Lightroom Classic. To get started, make sure the root (top) level of the hard drive is shown as a folder at the top of the folder list under the heading for the drive in the Folders section of the left panel in the Library module. To do so, right-click on a top-level folder and choose “Show Parent Folder” from the popup menu. Repeat this command until you get to the top level where a folder appears representing the hard drive.
You can then right-click on the folder representing the hard drive and choose “Find Missing Folder” from the popup menu. Navigate to the top level of the hard drive to choose that as the location to reconnect. After reconnecting, which will cause all subfolders to reconnect, you can hide the parent folders as desired by right-clicking and choosing “Hide This Parent” from the popup menu.
