Upgrading Windows PC - migration questions
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Hi all,
I am about to upgrade my PC, and need some advice on the best way to transfer/set up my C1 files/catalog on the new PC, so that I don't lose my edits for all RAW files.
On my current Windows PC I have 2 x hard drives, a C: drive and a D: drive
I store (and work on) my most current RAW files on my C: drive, and my older files on my D: drive.
Ideally I would move all my RAW files to one drive, to make the transfer easier.
However I do not have enough free storage on my C: drive to move all the files from my D: drive to it.
On the new PC I will just use 1 hard disk (C: drive), which has ample storage for all my RAW files.
Note: I have an external drive that I can plug in which has enough room to store all my RAW files.
When I plug into my current PC, it is labelled as my E: drive. I don't know if this assignment is dynamic, or if one can specify the label/name of the drive.
My question is, how does C1 reference the location of all RAW files across different drives? Is it a unique identifier for each RAW-file-edit?... And therefore it doesn't matter which drive it is on?...
Or does it reference the particular full file path and drive details?... And therefore the file path and name of drive matters.
Put another way - do I need to move all my RAW files to one single drive (my external E: drive?), and then after migration to the new PC, I plug in the external E: drive, make sure everything is synced up and the edits are there, and then move all RAW files from my external E: drive to the new PC's C: drive?
My concern is that, when I plug in the external E: drive to my new PC, that the new PC assigns it a different letter (e.g. it calls it a D: drive), and then the C1 file references to not work/pick up the edits.
And if this is the case, I don't know if it would be possible to reassign the D: drive and name it an E: drive, and then everything would work?
Note: Apart from the above queries, I am familiar with the migration process, and I'm ok with all that side of it.
Note: My current PC is Windows 10, the new PC will be Windows 11
It all seems rather complicated and convoluted, so maybe it's simpler than all of the above.
Any advice from anyone who has done a similar migration (or just knows the answers!) would be gratefully received!
Thanks much
Steve.
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I use Macs, not Windows PCs, but my understanding for the Windows situation is as follows.
Say you have a folder of images (and perhaps lots of subfolders too) at E:\Sports-photos. If you plug that drive into a new PC and it assigns it the letter D:\ instead, I thought that with Windows you could specify a different drive letter. So you can tell it to assign the letter E not D can't you?
Even if you can't do that, you can plug in the drive and if it comes up as D:\ of course the Capture One catalog won't know where the Sports-photos folder has gone. But you can right click it in the Capture One Library, choose the Locate Folder option and point Capture One to the new location on the new Drive D:\. (Note: you can locate folders, not drives, so don't try to get it to locate the missing drive E:\, but get it to locate the missing folder E:\Sports-photos. It can include the subfolders automatically.)
Once you have successfully reconnected it, you can move images to the internal drive on the new PC. Do it with the Library tool in Capture One, but don't do it all at once - in other words don't try dragging the whole Sports-photos folder to the new internal drive in one go. If it has thousands of images, things could grind to a halt! Perhaps if you have it organised by year you could create, say a Years folder on the new internal drive, add that to the catalog, and then drag 2024 from the external drive to the internal drive (USING THE LIBRARY TOOL, NOT OUTSIDE OF CAPTURE ONE). If 2024 already has huge numbers of images in it, consider doing it a bit at a time, for instance a month at a time.
I suggest creating a small test catalog to practise the process on first.
Ian
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Fantastic, thanks so much for your input, Ian.
Crystal clear, and all makes sense to me!
And yes you called, my images are arranged by year and month, so once I have the new PC, and everything is set up, i will move it all across one month at a time.
Thanks again, mucg appreciated.
Have a good one
Steve
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... and remember to try it on a small practice catalog first!
Ian
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