Relocating Masters from one ext. drive to another...

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Relocating Masters from one ext. drive to another...

I am seeking some advice to Aperture (latest version):

So far the folder of my Master-files has been relocated to an external hard disk, Consequently, in the event of reediting my pictures, I shall have to connect the said hard disk, when/if I would like to get hold of the Masters. Lately I faced a problem with the said external harddisk, and thought that my pictures (MASTERS) were in a process of disappearing. Luckily it appeared that the failure was related to a defect power supply only. BUT, I don't dare going on with this hard drive any longer, being by the way rather old, and immediately I bought a new 1 TB Lacie disk to which I intend to "copy" my Masters. I have by now tried out various ways of moving those Masters from the defect external drive to the NEW external drive, thus pulling the respective folder with the Masters to it's new place - however, hopefully, WITHOUT losing the same folder/files on the partly defect external harddisk. I have already tried "migrations" and a lot of other" tricks" - also pointing with the cursor to the NEW drive - but in vain. To be even more precise: Aperture seems not to be able to find it's way (to "see") the Masters on the new external hard disk - but they ARE there.....I can see them on the new drive. Could a cloning from the defect ext. drive to the new ext. drive be a way of procedure? Or are there more "normal" ways to bring in practise.

Indeed I would be most grateful for any advice that may lead to a succesful detecting of the said masters in their new position, i.e. the new external harddrive. Thanks!

Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on May 5, 2011 4:56 AM

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Answer 1

May 5, 2011 5:59 AM in response to mamster37

Use File->Relocate Masters in Aperture.

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Answer 2

mamster37 Author

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May 5, 2011 6:05 AM in response to Frank Caggiano

...and THEN? ......pointing to the external hard drive, or, I am afraid that it is not that simple.....but thanks for coming back!

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Answer 3

May 5, 2011 6:14 AM in response to mamster37

File->Relocate Masters is how you move Aperture masters from one location to another so that Aperture doesn't loose track of them. If you don;t use this command and move the files in the Finder you will need to run File->Locate Referenced Files in Aperture which while it works to reconnect the images can be more of a pain then just letting Aperture move them to begin with.

Select the images you want to relocate run the command and give it the destination. Thats pretty much it. See the manual for more detail but its pretty straight forward.

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Answer 4

mamster37 Author

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May 5, 2011 11:17 AM in response to Frank Caggiano

Thanks a lot Frank for your kind instruction, which I immediately gave a try, however, without being able to solve the problem. I selected the FOLDER on the external drive (re above) holding all of the Masters that I would like to "relocate" to my NEW ext. drive, and chose "RELOCATE" in the Aperture file menu, but I did not end up with a possibility of choosing a destination drive for relocation....what am I possibly doing wrong? Still grateful for any further hint which may lead to solving the problem.

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Answer 5

mamster37 Author

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May 5, 2011 11:25 AM in response to mamster37

....and does this procedure (when successfully for me) lead to a definite MOVING of the Masters from the one ext. drive to the other ext drive, or ONLY to a "copying" of the Masters?

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Answer 6

May 5, 2011 12:13 PM in response to mamster37

mamster37 wrote:

I selected the FOLDER on the external drive (re above) holding all of the Masters that I would like to "relocate" to my NEW ext. drive, and chose "RELOCATE" in the Aperture file menu, but I did not end up with a possibility of choosing a destination drive for relocation

To be clear: you need to select all the files you want to relocate in Aperture then go to File>Relocate Masters… and from there choose the new destination. I'm not sure what you mean by I selected the FOLDER on the external drive...

If Aperture can't find the files then you first need to use Locate Referenced Files and then - once they've been relinked - use the Relocate command.

Message was edited by: Jade Leary

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Answer 7

mamster37 Author

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May 5, 2011 12:22 PM in response to Jade Leary

Maybe I have not been sufficiently clear: My masters Are already on one external drive, placed in one folder on the drive. These files (in one folder), I would like to transfer ("relocate") to another newly bought external drive.....So, these Masters don't come from my home drive on the MacBook Pro.....

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Answer 8

May 5, 2011 12:33 PM in response to mamster37

I understand that. But the fact that they're in a folder or another on that external drive doesn't matter at all. You're not using the Finder to do anything.

What does matter is where they are in Aperture. If they're in your Aperture library and they're not showing up as offline then use the Relocate command as described by Frank. If, on the other hand, they're showing up as offline in Aperture, this means you first need to relink them to the original location in order to then move them to the new one.

Whether they come from your internal drive or are scattered all over several usb and firewire drives… Aperture just points to the files wherever they are and will move everything you ask it to move, to any destination you select.

I'm just trying to confirm that Aperture currently sees your masters. Does this make sense?

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Answer 9

mamster37 Author

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May 5, 2011 1:00 PM in response to Jade Leary

Thanks Jade for your patience. I can SEE all of my files in Aperture, but the Masters are off-line until the moment I connect to the said ext. drive where they are hold. I am afraid that I am not successful in following your good advice, but I continue my efforts.....

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Answer 10

May 5, 2011 1:12 PM in response to mamster37

No problem at all 🙂

Normally I'd tell you to plug in the old hard drive that contains the masters (so they come back online) and then use the Relocate Masters command we talked about. This will work.

But: I'm a little worried about doing that with a flaky drive. The reason being that when you Relocate masters they are physically moved from one location to another - not copied. So if your source drive should fail midstream it could potentially lead to problems.

If you have a backup of those files elsewhere then go ahead, it's the simplest solution. Otherwise what I'd do is go to the Finder and copy the files to the new drive (just drag your folder from the old to the new). Then, once it's finished copying eject the old faulty drive: in Aperture all your files will now be offline. At that point use the Locate referenced masters command, point Aperture to a missing file in the new location and click Reconnect All.

Aperture will relink everything to the new drive and you should be on your way.

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Answer 11

mamster37 Author

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May 5, 2011 1:28 PM in response to Jade Leary

Dear Jade, I admire your very kind patience, you are writing with a person being 75, so I'll have to "digest" all of your good suggestions and try to put them in practise in the course of tomorrow. I seem to have already more times tried to bring in practice what you suggest in your first paragraph - but in vain. In fact I have not so many worries about the old external drive, but of course I would prefer to have the masters transferred to the NEW external drive within a reasonable time, i.e. as soon as possible.....I shall revert to you....thanks a lot again!

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Answer 12

mamster37 Author

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May 5, 2011 2:10 PM in response to mamster37

I decided to give it a last try before going to bed: The ext drive holding the Masters was connected, and upon the command "Relocate masters for library" I am given the message "Unavailable Masters cannot be relocated".....and further "Not sufficient space on the drive".....it's a rather tough "game"....I continue tomorrow.....

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Answer 13

May 5, 2011 7:09 PM in response to mamster37

Hi mamster 37 - I'm with you. I have several files and folders on an external drive some of which I am able to access on my laptop, others which I can't. I have tried all of the above to relocate the masters of those that are unavailable, to no avail.

However, I have had a good look at the package contents on my external hard drive and can see that the available masters are in the 'Masters' folder and the unavailable masters are in the 'Previews' folder. Having this information has made me none the wiser!!!

Maybe someone out there can explain this phenomena 🙂

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Answer 14

May 5, 2011 7:18 PM in response to daisydiver

daisydiver wrote:

However, I have had a good look at the package contents on my external hard drive and can see that the available masters are in the 'Masters' folder and the unavailable masters are in the 'Previews' folder.

That's normal. The Previews are the files generated by Aperture for display and sharing purposes. They're the reason you can still browse your pictures when the masters are offline.

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Answer 15

May 5, 2011 7:28 PM in response to Jade Leary

Hi Jade,

Thanks, but how do I access them as Masters? Why are they offline? Also, for some strange reason, only some of my files are offline (seems that they are the most recent flies).

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