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Reviving old database and HD paths have changed
mellortime:
I worked on a big photography project 9 years ago, but haven't touched it since. I've got backups of everything but, I've gotten new computers and all the drive paths have changed even though I've got exactly the same file/folder structure beneath. I can not figure out how to point T+ to the new drive paths. This is important because the database includes a ton of meta information (annotations) that I need to preserve. I've got the old .txt file export I did, but I can't find the "Import" function within ThumbsPlus - documentation says it should be in Database->Advanced->Import but I don't see it (do I need a diff version of T+?).
Any help appreciated.
Daan van Rooijen:
--- Quote from: mellortime on 2019-05-11 09:47:15 ---I've got backups of everything but, I've gotten new computers and all the drive paths have changed even though I've got exactly the same file/folder structure beneath.
--- End quote ---
Make sure that the drive volume labels are exactly the same as before, too (for the drives that hold images).
Which version of TP do you have?
mellortime:
I'm using TP 10.
Here's a snippet from the txt file that shows what the path should be with the volume labels:
"EH",0x280bf4f8,3,"\\familyhistory\c$","FAT32","JLM History Picture Project\Album 002"
Where the files are currently:
"c:\Users\John\Documents\Mellor\041128 JLM History Photos Backup"
I'm not sure exactly what to change, or how to do it. Is there a way to do that in TP - e.g. can I point to TP to the new top-level folder for the database (in this case change "JLM History Picture Project" to "041128 JLM History Photos Backup") and have it do the redirect or is there some other way?
Also, I don't see an option to import a txt file. Am I just not seeing it?
Thanks so much for the help!
Daan van Rooijen:
Do you also still have the older TP version and the *.td4 database that it produced 9 years ago? And are the image files regular JPGs? If so, you could:
1) Re-install that older version of ThumbsPlus in a folder of its own (e.g. C:\TP7 - not under program files).
2) (temporarily) Use Explorer to change the volume label of drive C: to "EH" (without the quotes), which seems to be what it was on the older PC.
3) Re-create the folder C:\JLM History Picture Project
4) Copy the folder and files from the backup to this project folder, such that their structure within that folder is identical to what it was 9 years go.
5) Then (and ONLY then) launch the old TP with the old *.td4 database and see if you can properly browse and view the old images, as well as see their annotations, in the new program folder.
If you can get that working, the next step would be to incorporate the annotations into the image files themselves in the form of IPTC metadata. That would allow TP10 and other software to access it later.
So, that's one possible approach. Alternatively, for instance if all that you have is that exported text file, you can try to import it into TP10 using Database | Advanced | Import, which may or may not work (that part of TP is a bit wonky). The old volume label and old main folder name no longer exist though, so you could either recreate that old situation (as above) or try to edit the TXT data beforehand (use Search and Replace in a text editor to replace the old label and folder names with the new ones). TP needs the volume labels and paths that were recorded in the database for each thumbnail to be the same as they are in reality, on your current hard drive, or it can't match up the image files with their records in the database.
--- Quote ---I'm not sure exactly what to change, or how to do it.
--- End quote ---
The order of fields in a TP7 .txt export is:
"Label","Alias","SerialNo","VolType","Connection","Filesystem","Path","FileTime","ThumbTime","FileSize","Checksum","Width","Height","HorizRes","VertRes",
"ColorType","ColorBits","Gamma","ThumbWidth","ThumbHeight","ThumbType","ThumbSize","FileName","Annotation","Keywords"
,"UserFields([0;Original Date/Time;uf_Original_DateTime;12;23])","Galleries"
--- Quote ---Is there a way to do that in TP - e.g. can I point to TP to the new top-level folder for the database (in this case change "JLM History Picture Project" to "041128 JLM History Photos Backup") and have it do the redirect or is there some other way?
--- End quote ---
Yes, and this would be approach No. 3. If you keep backups of your database(s), there IS a simple method that lets you re-match orphaned folders in the database (as they're called) with their new equivalents on the harddisk. In that case you won't have to recreate the old situation, nor edit the .txt file - you would just import the old data. Next, you would look up the (greyed-out, orphaned) old folder such as Album 002 in the tree, and drag-and-drop it onto its new location (Album 002 in the new '041128 JLM History Photos Backup' folder) (it helps if you open all relevant folders beforehand). At that point, TP will carry the data from the orphaned old image files over to their same-named brethren in the new folder.
That's usually the easiest method, but you must be sure to keep backups in case anything goes wrong (if you're dealing with tens or hundreds of folders it's easy to drop one at the wrong place). Also before doing this, in TP10, you must make sure that this option is off: "Options | Preferences | Thumbnails | Autoremove Orphans". If you try this, be sure to verify afterwards that all images really have their annotations back.
mellortime:
Thank you so much for this info. I will work on this and report back in a few days.
Again, thank you!
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