drive letter issue

I had an external drive that was lettered ''J'' on an older PC. This PC had Photoshop Elements 6. No Premiere on this system. I have since turned it into an internal second drive in a newer PC, thus labeled ''D''. This newer PC had PSE 6 and PE 4 - no problems. I have upgraded to version 7 on both. I am now having an issue with PE not finding video placed on this second drive in the organizer - It thinks the video is on drive ''J''. I used PE to add the media, which places it in the organizer. PE shows a symbol for the file (a reconnect symbol I think). It pops a dialog to locate the file. I keep doing this but it thinks this drive is letter ''j'' even though it is really ''D''. I do have a ''J'' on my system from a card reader, but it is empty. PSE sees the files in Organizer just fine. It is only PE. This makes it impossible to use my second drive with PE. I may have to downgrade to PE 4.



Is there a way to exclude the organizer with PE?
drive letter issue
In the the Premiere Elements Organize tab, click on the Tagging button. This will open up the full-featured Organizer.



You can try pressing F5. This will refresh things -- but it may not fix your problem.



The more manual solution is to locate the clip(s) in the Organizer, right-click and select the Update option.



If this doesn't work, you may want to go into the Photoshop Elemets Organizer, which has even more features for updating and refreshing. It also allows you to delete links to files that are no longer on your computer.



I haven't had the experience you're describing so I can't say for certain this will work, but it's worth trying.



There's also a hack for removing the Organizer catalog so that Premiere Elements has to rebuild it. I can't remember it, but maybe someone here or one of the experts at the Muvipix forum know it.

http://muvipix.com/phpBB3//
drive letter issue
Here's the Adobe Knowledge Base article on rebuilding the Organizer catalog, which may or may not help.

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=332070



As I say, it's pretty drastic. It won't hurt anything, but you don't want to have to do it every time you move a file.



Rather, in cases like yours, I'd recommend just manually re-linking the thumbnails as I described above.

jason,



I have seen posts of other people having a problem with the Organizer using an obsolete drive letter for referencing an external drive: this appears to be a bug. Here is what I would try if I experienced this problem :



-- Pick one video thumbnail in the Organize area of Premiere Elements, right click on that thumbnail and choose ''Update'' from the right click menu. Now it will be great news if this resolves your probolem, but ..



-- Otherwise I think it will probably be necessary to open this catalog under the Photoshop Elements 7 Organizer - because the PSE Organizer has more functions. (now you may have already done this to examine the Properties) In any case, I would try the right click on the thumbnail for the same video under the PSE 7 Organizer and try the Update Thumbnail. This may take you thru the Photoshop Elements Reconnect windows and again may or may not be successful in giving you a good file reference for the correct drive containing this video file.



-- If the previous step does not fix your problem, I would post on the Photoshop Elements Technical Issues forum here at the Adobe sites. See http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bbb4ab0/



John Ellis, who is an Adobe customer and a regular on that forum has written a program that can analyze a PSE v7 catalog. He has also written notes on common problems with the recent PSE versions which are available at

http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/photoshopelements-6-7-faq.htm

I think that he is probably the best person to help on this problem.



When you post on that PSE forum include all the details from your original post here. Also identify at what version of the Photoshop Elements Organizer you added this video file to your Elements Catalog. (I understand that it was added on a prior PC where J was an external drive. However since the Catalog database changed radically for PSE 6 from prior versions, it may be relevant to know what version originally added this video file to the catalog.)

Thanks all. What is strange is that in Photoshop Element 7, the files are correct. It shows them as the ''D'' drive, everything is normal. It is only in Premiere, where the problem arizes with the old drive letter. I can't fix the problem in Photoshop, as it does not exist there. I have tried ''updating'' in Premiere and get sent into an eternal loop of ''locating'' the file. It just sees that drive as ''J''. All works fine if I use my ''C'' drive, but that drive is getting full. I may try the eliminating Organizer, or use a separate catalog.



If I revert to PE 4, will it interface with Photoshop E 7's organizer?

jason,



%26gt;I am now having an issue with PE not finding video placed on this second drive in the organizer - It thinks the video is on drive ''J''. I used PE to add the media, which places it in the organizer.



I am not sure if I am interpreting this correctly. Did you use PE 4 to add this media or did you use PE7 to add the problematic media?



If you used PE 4 to add the now problematic media, what is the result when you add a media that is on the 2nd drive (now D) using PE 7?



Depending on the answer here, you might be able to remove some media from the catalog (but not delete from hard drive) and then add it to the catalog again with PE 7.



%26gt;If I revert to PE 4, will it interface with Photoshop E 7's organizer?



My guess is no, but I don't have Premiere Elements 4 installed to try it.



%26gt; I may try the eliminating Organizer, or use a separate catalog.



I have started using a separate catalog for video and copies of any photos that I have used in a video: this is the Catalog that I have Premiere Elements open. Everyone usually has different reasons for that choice: just be aware that you can not do a Tag search across multiple catalog and there is no function to later combine these catalogs.



HOWEVER, it would be VERY interesting for you to make a new v7 catalog, add some video in Premiere Elements 7 that is on your second drive (now D) and then observe what happens with the thumbnails. One reason I am guessing that it might work is that this new catalog would probably not ''know'' the history of this drive (whatever its serial number is) having been previously used as an external drive with the letter J.

Interesting. I will try the new catalog method and let you know.



Barb -



I am now using PE7 and PSE7. I import a new video in PE7 from drive D (which PE7 thinks is drive J). I then get in the eternal loop and cannot use this drive.



What is odd is when I open PSE7 - it knows the drive is D, and sees the newly imported file just fine. So, even though the 2 programs share the same catalog, they must use the data differently.



Jay

That worked!



A new catalog fixed the issue



Thanks

Jason,



Thanks for the feedback.

Sounds like you are OK with the approach of a new catlog - true?



My guess would be that this use of an old drive letter is a bug in PRE 7 and you have circumvented it by making a new catalog which does not know of the previous drive letter for that specific hard drive.



%26gt;So, even though the 2 programs share the same catalog, they must use the data differently.



My experience with other processing on the Catalog in PSE 7 and PRE 7 agrees with this suspicion

It is -by the way- alway possible in Windows to change drive letters.

Click right mouse key on my computer, select manage and then disk manager. This is where you can change drive leters.

I would do this, but I don't want to mess with the photo portion and my online backup software. The new catalog fix works great. I didn't want all my clips in my photo catalog anyway.



Thanks everyone!!