Had to change External Hard Drive; How do I make the change in DigiKam ?

Graham Lambert graham.g.lambert at gmail.com
Thu Apr 20 10:38:48 BST 2017


Having looked at the database on Windows (the Windows 10 PC is from my 
OH) and I think it should be a simple replace disk operation:

Copy all the data from your old drive where digikam is mounted eg. M:.

Rename the old drive to something else. e.g. M: becomes N:

Name the new drive as M:

As far as I can see the Windows version of digikam does not seem to use 
drive specific identification, but does identify the drive number.

BUT:

If the above does not work then you are in for a bit of a puzzle, to get 
this absolutely solved. Meaning that what I've read in the Windows 
database DOES mark the disk specifically and you need to play games with 
the database.

On Linux the disk IDs are used and any disks you swap have to be 
re-identified. It may be that you can swap Linux disks as well, but as 
you have said there is no documentation covering this . If you have 
collections with loads of tags and references it would be a pity to lose 
this on a disk swap-out.

I find this the weakest point of digikam and have resorted to using SQL 
to deal with this in the past.

As a guide if the above does not work you will have to:

  * make a copy of the current database (digikam4.db in the base
    directory of your photo library).
  * make a new virgin version of digikam on the new disk - do not add
    anything except for setting the base directory for your library on
    the new disk
  * if you cannot make a new version you will have to temporarily remove
    the current disk
  * ** dump the AlbumRoots table from the new disk
  * ** get the entry for the disk identifier
  * ** change the entry in the AlbumRoots that identifies your current
    disk for the identifier that has been created for the new disk
  * delete the new installation of digikam from the new disk
  * re-install the current disk if removed
  * copy your library to the new disk
  * restart digikam

It should pick up the new location

** What you need to have if you have to follow the above is to be 
comfortable with the command line and SQL. You will need more than an 
hour to do this at a comfortable pace.

I have done this a few times successfully. I took this action because as 
you say there is no documentation and although I do not mind rebuilding 
my library I do not want to have to rebuild all my tags. I use Linux and 
Mac, and have migrated the database to MySQL, mainly because I wanted to 
use other tools to access the database but that's another story.

Hope the simple solution works ;-)

Good luck

Graham

On 19/04/2017 17:56, BuckSkin wrote:
> Thanks.
> I am using 64-bit Windows 7 Pro and digiKam 5.6.0
>
> I went into Disk Management and put the old drive's letter on the new 
> drive, but that did not fool digiKam; it just recognized the old drive 
> with the new letter that I assigned to it.
>
> On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 6:55 AM, Michael Eschweiler-2 [via digiKam] 
> <[hidden email] </user/SendEmail.jtp?type=node&node=4695808&i=0>> wrote:
>
>     High BuckSkin,
>
>     Which system are you using? If it's Linux, you should disconnect
>     the old
>     harddisk and use the same mountpoint for the new one. In case you
>      used
>     the (semi-)automatic mount, which is provided by many graphical
>     interfaces like kde, it's more complicated.
>
>     Michael
>
>     Am 18.04.2017 um 10:03 schrieb BuckSkin:
>
>     > I looked for my answer in the "Handbook" but could not find it.
>     >
>     > I have many "collections" in DigiKam that are all on an external
>     hard-drive
>     > that has become questionable in it's integrity; thus, I have
>     copied all of
>     > my image files to a new drive.
>     >
>     > The old drive still remains connected because there are many
>     other things
>     > besides pictures stored on it.
>     >
>     > How do I disassociate Digikam from the old drive and point
>     DigiKam to the
>     > new drive without having to add all of my collections all over
>     again ?
>     >
>     > I looked in "settings" for a means to accomplish this, but if
>     the ability is
>     > there I could not understand the terminology.
>     >
>     > Thanks for reading.
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     > --
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