Transferring ACDSee Database to new computer

Does anyone know how to move an ACDsee database from one computer to
another?

My story is that I have upgraded to a new PC, and have transferred my
photo collection and my copy of ACDsee version 8 to the new one. I
tried restoring a backup of my ACDsee database (that was created on
the old computer) onto the new computer, but get a message saying the
database is not valid. Exporting & importing the database does not
work either. Both computers run Windows XP.

Given that I have indexed about 6000 photos, I am not particularly
happy at the moment!

Thanks

James

JAM wrote:
: Does anyone know how to move an ACDsee database from one computer to
: another?

: My story is that I have upgraded to a new PC, and have transferred my
: photo collection and my copy of ACDsee version 8 to the new one. I
: tried restoring a backup of my ACDsee database (that was created on
: the old computer) onto the new computer, but get a message saying the
: database is not valid. Exporting & importing the database does not
: work either. Both computers run Windows XP.

: Given that I have indexed about 6000 photos, I am not particularly
: happy at the moment!

: Thanks

: James

I dojn't know specifically about ACDSee but I may have an explaination.
Some similar programs use the computer language "location" to locate the
originals. Not the text based language that we all see. So even if you
think you have made an exact copy of your data base from one computer or
media to another the location will not match. Or another problem may be
that the program is looking for your images to be on a drive with a
specific drive ID number (not the drive letter but the manufacturer
designated number) and when you copied the images from one drive to
another the drive ID would not match. Thus the program gets confused when
it looks for the images on a drive number that is not currently connected
to the computer.

For future, you might want to think about getting an external drive with
plenty of room and puting all your images on that one drive. Then when you
get a new computer you move the drive from the old to the new and the
drive ID as well as the location on that drive will still exist. The
program will then be able to match the DB entries with the originals as
always. The only thing you will have to be sure of is that some programs
depend on the drive keeping the same drive name (E drive, etc) so you may
have to make sure the name matches. Also some programs allow you to set
where the catalog (DB) is stored and if that is also stored on that
drive you could have everything in one place. In fact if you use this to
store a catalog on each backup media with the DB for the images only on
that media, that catalog would always be with the associated images.

As to what you can do now, I don't know for sure but you might try
temporarily installing the HD from you old computer into the new one and
then transfer the images (and data) from the old drive to the new from
within the catalog program itself (if this is possible). This way the
program would recognize the new location as a valid location. Of course
when you are done you could then remove the old drive or just format it to
use it as a scratch disk (short term, work in progress storage).

Good luck

Randy

==========
Randy Berbaum
Champaign, IL

On 27 Apr 2007 21:29:53 -0700
JAM wrote:

Does anyone know how to move an ACDsee database from one computer to
another?

My story is that I have upgraded to a new PC, and have transferred my
photo collection and my copy of ACDsee version 8 to the new one. I
tried restoring a backup of my ACDsee database (that was created on
the old computer) onto the new computer, but get a message saying the
database is not valid. Exporting & importing the database does not
work either. Both computers run Windows XP.

Given that I have indexed about 6000 photos, I am not particularly
happy at the moment!

This sounds like a question for the vendor's technical support people.
My guess would be that ACDsee needs something beyond just the database
in order to recognize it as "valid". Perhaps it stashes some secret
key in the registry when the database is created, or some similar
brain-damage?

It's also an object lesson in the risks of using proprietary file
formats, but that's a topic for another thread.

Good luck!

Paul Allen

"JAM" wrote in message
oups.com...
Does anyone know how to move an ACDsee database from one computer to
another?

Have you tried asking in their forums?
http://forums.acdsystems.com/

On Apr 29, 6:22 am, "Mark" wrote:
"JAM" wrote in message

oups.com...

Does anyone know how to move an ACDsee database from one computer to
another?

Have you tried asking in their forums?http://forums.acdsystems.com/

Mark,
That was actually the first thing I tried. Couldn't find an
answer in any existing posts, and my repeated attempts to register so
I could make a new post all failed.

I've stopped being an ACDsee fan.

JAM