Dealing with Disasters

It’s pretty unlikely that you’ll have a major problem with your Lightroom catalog (after all these years of using Lightroom, it’s only happened to me once), and if it does happen, chances are Lightroom can repair itself (which is pretty handy). However, the chances of your hard drive crashing, or your computer dying, or getting stolen (with the only copy of your catalog on it) are much higher. Here’s how to deal with both of these potential disasters in advance, and what to do if the big potty hits the air circulation device:

Step One:

If you launch Lightroom and you get a warning dialog like you see here (at top), then go ahead and give Lightroom a chance to fix itself by clicking the Repair Catalog button. Chances are pretty likely it’ll fix the catalog and then you’re all set. However, if Lightroom can’t fix the catalog, you’ll see the bottom warning dialog instead, letting you know that your catalog is so corrupt it can’t fix it. If that’s the case, it’s time to go get your backup copy of your catalog (ya know, the one we talked about a couple pages ago).