Lightroom not recognizing EHD's of same name

Lightroom uses a 'path' to the images, meaning it stores the location of an image in the following way: "DiskName/FolderName/SubfolderName/ImageName". That is why you cannot use two disks with the same name. Lightroom does not know which disk it is dealing with, even if only one of the disks is connected.

You will have to rename one of the disks (that is trivial to do: just click on the name, wait a second or two, then click on it again), then connect both disks at the same time, and see which folders are now shown as missing. These are the folders which are on the renamed disk. You can 'reconnect' these folders by right-clicking on them. Choose 'Find Missing Folder' and navigate to the correct location. Do it with a top folder, that will also reconnect all its subfolders.

Thank you. I can't seem to rename them, though. When I click, it just opens the folder up; clicking again closes it. When I right click, there is no "rename" option. When I hover, though, I see that one is named /Volumes/LaCie, and the other /Volumes/LaCie1. Does this mean they are already named differently?

You have to click on the name below the disk icon on your desktop. That will select the name. Clicking on it again (but wait a few seconds before you do that) will make it editable. Perhaps an easier way is right-clicking (or Ctrl-clicking) on the disk icon. That will give you a contextual menu and 'Rename' is one of the menu items.

/Volumes/LaCie and /Volumes/LaCie1 means that the names are the same. There is a difference between the way MacOS X stores disk info and how Lightroom does it. MacOS X shows you the name, but internally it uses a unique ID. That is why MacOS X can mount two disks with the same name and not get confused. But Lightroom only uses the disk name, so Lightroom does get confused when two disks have the same name.

Johan, thank you for bearing with me! I thought you meant re-name in LR, but now I see why that obviously wouldn't work. I have renamed the new one, so now all the images on the old one are found. However, I can't find the EHD anywhere after clicking 'Find Missing Folder.' It's not navigating anywhere for me. It's just opening my Mac HD, and it's not showing up as on my Desktop. Again, I am probably missing something very simple. 

You have to navigate yourself. It's a standard 'open' dialog. Use that dialog to go to the folder on the renamed HD and select it.

It is simply as though the EHD doesn't exist, at least as I see it. I see "LaCie Two" on my desktop, and can open it and see all the image files. When I 'find missing folder,' though, no search brings up anything named 'LaCie Two.' I also notice that the folders are named somewhat differently; in LR it says 'LaCie Porsche Design,' and in the actual EHD it is under 'photos go here.' Seems like that may make a difference? Kinda feel like I'm going insane at the moment. Here's a screenshot to show the differently named folders. 

I'm not sure what you've been doing, but Lightroom shows three 'LaCie' disks now (two of them not mounted). Lightroom expects a parent folder 'LaCie Porsche Design', but that parent folder does not really exist on the disk (as shown in the dialog). So is this really the same disk? This looks like your Time Machine backup disk (because of the folder 'Backups.backupdb') with some extra stuff that doesn't belong here...

Well, I'm not really sure what I've been doing, either! Once I renamed the second Lacie EHD 'Lacie Two,' this is what popped up in LR. The top LaCie, that isn't connected, is the old drive that I don't have turned on right now, but that one seems all set. The second, 'LaCie 1,' is what used to be the new drive, but once I renamed it, on my desktop, to 'Lacie Two,' it created this whole new third one, aptly named 'LaCie Two,' but I don't know where the 'LaCie Porsche Design' comes from. And yes, also on that same EHD is my Time Machine back-up. Can the images and the back-up not be on the same EHD? 

Images can be on your Time Machine disk, but it is better to have a dedicated disk for backups. How would you backup those images when the originals are on a backup disk?

I would expand the two unmounted disks in Lightroom, to see what Lightroom expects on those disks. And I would mount the other LaCie disk, so you can see (in the Finder) what really is on each disk and what is not. That should give you an idea about what folder is on which disk, so you can reconnect folders that are shown as missing in Lightroom.

Oh, dear, of course they shouldn't be on the same disk! So obvious now...

Here is a screen shot of the expanded other disks. The top one is good now. The middle one used to house what I had on the new EHD, but now doesn't expect much, apparently. 

I'm seriously considering just going to get another EHD (which I've just established I need to, anyway), and re-loading everything.  

OK, right-click on the LaCie1 folder on the LaCie1 disk, and delete it using the contextual menu. That will delete this disk from Lightroom, so you only see the two real disks. Do you still see missing folders? If so, try to find them in the Finder first. A folder that is shown as missing on the LaCie Two disk, may in reality be located on the other disk (even if you don't see it in Lightroom). That makes it easier to use the 'Find Missing Folder' menu in Lightroom, because you know where the missing folder is.

OK, I've deleted the Lacie1 so now it's just the other 2 left. I still see missing folders. I did a Spotlight search for a missing folder, and this is what I found. Seems almost promising. Is this what you meant?


And then I clicked on a date, and found this. All the images from that date. 

I can't find the parent folder, 2017, though. 

Yes, it looks like you have found the folder. I can't see the folder hierarchy from the screenshot though, and in Lightroom the '07-2017' parent folder is collapsed, so I can only assume that the '2017-07-09' folder is inside that folder. Lightroom is showing '07-2017' as missing however, so that can mean that the parent folder of '07-2017' is different from what Lightroom thinks it should be.

Lightroom shows '2017' as the parent folder of '07-2017', but that one is also missing. The parent folder of '2017' is 'LaCie Porsche Design'. That folder is not missing. So what Lightroom is telling you is that you need to find the '2017' folder and check that it does indeed contain the '2017-07-09' subfolder. Your first screenshot suggests that there are actually three of them: one on 'LaCie', one on 'LaCie Two' and one as subfolder of 'photos go here, 7/17 to'. You have to find out (by looking inside them in the Finder) which one is the correct one and 'reconnect' that one with the 'find missing Folder' menu.

The 'photos go here, 7/17 to' folder is another problem however, especially if that turns out to be the correct parent folder. On the Macintosh, you can use a slash in a folder name. But for Lightroom, a slash in a folder name is an invalid character, because Lightroom uses the slash as a separator in the path. Lightroom will think that a folder called 'photos go here, 7/17 to' is a subfolder called '17 to' that is inside a parent folder called 'photos go here, 7'. Obviously, that will once again lead to missing folders. You must rename this folder before you try to reconnect Lightroom to it!

Yes, it looks like you have found the folder. I can't see the folder hierarchy from the screenshot though, and in Lightroom the '07-2017' parent folder is collapsed, so I can only assume that the '2017-07-09' folder is inside that folder. Lightroom is showing '07-2017' as missing however, so that means that the parent folder of '07-2017' is not where Lightroom thinks it should be.

You say you can't find the '2017' parent folder, but an earlier screenshot shows that there are actually two of them on the LaCie Two disk! One is inside a folder called 'photos go here'. Isn't that the one? I can't see the contents of that folder because it is collapsed. The second '2017' folder is inside a folder called 'photos go here, 7/17 to'. It does have a '07-2017' folder inside it, but no '2017-07-09' subfolder inside that. 

The 'photos go here, 7/17 to' folder name is problem by itself however. On the Macintosh, you can use a slash in a folder name. But for Lightroom, a slash in a folder name is an invalid character, because Lightroom uses the slash as a separator in the path. Lightroom will think that a folder called 'photos go here, 7/17 to' is a subfolder called '17 to' that is inside a parent folder called 'photos go here, 7'. Obviously, that will once again lead to missing folders. You must rename this folder before you try to reconnect Lightroom to it or its subfolder!

I sure have made a mess! I was in a rush this summer to share some baseball pics, ran out of room on the first EHD and I didn't think it all through! So I just figured out that the 'photos go here, 7/17 to' folder is all duplicate dng's of what's already in the 'photos go here' folder. (I vaguely remember importing them twice because I couldn't find the first import. Now I see why!) Can I just delete the 'photos go here, 7/17 to' folder? FYI I have all these images still on the cards, so if I have to re-import, I can. 

So even if they are on separate disks/EHD's, should I not name something the same? As in, '2017.' So on the old one it's '2017,' but on the new one I should have named it '2017-1' or something like that? Is that partly why I can't find it? 

I need to go for now, but will be back to this tomorrow afternoon. I can't thank you enough for your help!!