Backing-up: External Hard Drive to External Hard Drive with LR5

I use LR5 on a Mac laptop. My catalog, backups, original images, presets…EVERYTHING is on the (main) external hard drive. No problems there. I backup my catalog regularly.
I was told to use Carbon Copy Cloner to periodically clone the main external hard drive to generate my backup external hard drive, so the entire main hard drive would be backed up, should disaster occur. I have done that…wherein lies my problem(s).
I’m hoping someone can help me with/educate me on, so I can better understand and fix the issues.
When only the backup external hard drive is connected, a pop-up window reads “Lightroom Catalog was not found.” I open the backup external drive catalog. When the backup catalog opens, the folder that I put my original images in (called “Original Images”), does not appear.
I have opened Finder and compared the main & backup hard drives. They are identical. I can see everything, including the “Original Images” folder. I have opened the images in Finder and the images are there, on both external hard drives.
Questions: Why can’t I see the cloned “Original Images” folder on the cloned, backup external hard drive?
                   How do I ‘find’ the Original Images folder?
2. Even though I don’t see the “Original Images” under Folder, if I go to Catalogs>All Photographs, all the images are there…but none of them are linked.                Correct me if I’m wrong here: The backup external hard drive is looking for the link to/in the main external hard drive because the backup external hard        drive was cloned from it.
I have thought about going through and re-linking the images in Catalog>All Photographs, but I believe they will be 'un-linked' every time I re-clone the main external hard drive to the backup external hard drive.
Questions: Is that last statement correct?
                  If that statement was correct and the main external hard drive dies or becomes corrupted, what is the purpose of having cloned the main                          external hard drive?
                  Wouldn’t the backup external hard drive NEED the main external hard drive to re-link images, retrieve metadata, etc.
   3. I want all of LR5 on a main external hard drive. And, I want to have a completely useable, glitch-free (backup) external hard drive, that I can open and see         all my files.
             Questions: If this (cloning) is not the way to achieve that, what method of backing up is the correct way to back-up?
                                I realize that in the Import Screen, a duplicate copy can be made and saved to another location, does this play a part?
I’ve read LR5 books, and searched the web, and I haven’t found anything that addresses how an existing catalog that is on an external hard drive should/can be backed up to another external hard drive.
Please help if you can. Answers to questions and/or step by step external to external backup instructions will be greatly appreciated!

Of course, when your primary external HD is not connected, when you open Lightroom, it cannot find your primary catalog. It doesn't know the look on the other hard disk for your catalog file.
The problem is that once you open the catalog file on the backup HD, it still points to the primary HD, and so your images appear to be disconnected. There is no way to make a copy of the catalog file and have it point to a different disk; copies of your catalog file always points to the original disk. However this is easily fixed, via http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm
Maybe you want a "completely useable, glitch-free (backup) external hard drive, that I can open and see all my files", but I don't think you really want that. In my opinion, the part about "that I can open and see all my files" isn't required. The ONLY time you should be doing any work with the backup HD, is when your primary HD fails. Other than that, your backup HD should just sit there, unused, so nothing can happen to it and be available for emergencies, in which case the instructions in #2 above get you up and running in under 5 minutes. Use your primary HD at all times (except when it fails, then use the backup).
So, your backup method is fine, it is the intended use of these backups that needs re-thinking.

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Not tech savvy at all and barely understand basics. I need very simple and easy to understand explanations.

sydababy wrote:
and then deleting them off of my computer.
BIG BIG MISTAKE ..... youre making a linchpin deathtrap for your data trying to shove everything on a single fragile HD.
Dont suffer the tragedy other people make, buy another or 2 more HD, theyre cheap as dust.
The number of people who have experienced terror by having a single external HD backup is enormous. One failure that WILL HAPPEN, and kaput,......all gone!
Dont do it, its all about redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.
follow here:
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection
Deleting them off your computer is fine....having only ONE copy is extremely BAD.
The Tragedy that will be, the tragedy that never should be
Always presume correctly that your data is priceless and takes a very long time to create and often is irreplaceable. Always presume accurately that hard drives are extremely cheap, and you have no excuse not to have multiple redundant copies of your data copied on hard drives and squirreled away several places, lockboxes, safes, fireboxes, offsite and otherwise.
Hard drives aren't prone to failure…hard drives are guaranteed to fail (the very same is true of SSD). Hard drives dont die when aged, hard drives die at any age, and peak in death when young and slowly increase in risk as they age.
Never practice at any time for any reason the false premise and unreal sense of security in thinking your data is safe on any single external hard drive. This is never the case and has proven to be the single most common horrible tragedy of data loss that exists.
Many 100s of millions of hours of lost work and data are lost each year due to this single common false security. This is an unnatural disaster that can avoid by making all data redundant and then redundant again. If you let a $60 additional redundant hard drive and 3 hours of copying stand between you and years of work, then you've made a fundamental mistake countless 1000s of people each year have come to regret.

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1. Quit iPhoto
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3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
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Backing Up.
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Regards
TD

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Delete a photo it is deleted across all disks.. you have no recovery.
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B-rock

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Toekoms

toekoms wrote:
I currently back up my imac via time machine but to reduce space on my hard drive I want to move my itunes library onto an external hard drive. If i do this can time machine still back up my imac and the external hard drive with the itunes library on automatically?
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JGG
edited by the Jolly Green Giant (where Green stands for environmentally friendly)

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I recently backed up my Macbook pro on to an external hard drive. I was wodnering if i could delete my photos from my iphoto library to save space, and if so can i then get them back on my computer from my external hard drive?

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Ummals wrote:
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Good evening,
My college student daughter uses her macbook pro, 13" Mid-2010, for ALL her school work. A few days ago it stopped working for her. Blank screen. Turned it off and on, blank screen with the gear spinning. She took it to a place named MacExperience in Indy for diagnositcs. The tech got it working and said it was OK now ($90 later). Two hours later, same thing occurred. She returned to the tech and he indicated it is in fact the logistics board that needs repair/replacement.
She purchased an external hard drive (G-Drive 500 GB mini FW800/USB 2/FW400 7200 RPM)--that is the description from the receipt she scanned and sent to me. The tech backed up her files from the MBP to the External HD so that the files are usable on a PC until the MBP is repaired.
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Message was edited by: fmwhelp

I may be wrong, but I believe the format has something to do with it - note the sizes here (from the Help in Disk Utility on how to format a drive for Windows):

Problem backing up multiple internal hard drives to external

SITUATION:
We have 4 internal hard drives dedicated to media + another running the programs. The FCP projects are all saved on one of the media hard drives which also has captured media on it. The other 3 media drives hold the rest of the media for these projects. I have copied them all, one hard drive at a time, onto a La Cie external hard drive.
PROBLEM:
When I go into the La Cie drive, double click on HardDrive1 and open a project, the only "on line" clips in the browser are from the HardDrive1. It can't seem to link up to the media on the other three hard drives even though all the media is there.
QUESTION:
Anyone know how to set up the La Cie disk so that the projects on HD1 can find all their media from the 3 other media hard drives?

OK, had coffee, thinking straight(er)...almost not confused.
Your recent post would indicate that you have 7 harddrives inside your Mac.?.?. I think I understand what you have going on, and may be able to help, but it'll take a bit more info...
Are each of the 'desktop icon' harddrives individual harddrives, or partitioned HDs. If any are partitioned, can you tell me which?
I understand PROMAX has a good name, so I'm inclined to believe that whatever they did, was done properly and with good reason.
Anyway, I copied all of these hard drives onto the LaCie starting with the FCP HD and set that one up as a "bootable" hard drive. The rest followed, one HD at a time (took forever!).
"I copied all of these hard drives"... How did you copy...CCCloner? MediaManager, Drag and drop. This may be part of the issue...a little beyond my scope, but let us know how you copied the drive contents from internal to Lacie.
Can you open any of the 'non-findable' clips on the Lacie in QuickTime..just to make sure they're on the drive and usable?
When you open FCP on the lacie (and it only connects to files from same 'drive')...do you get the normal 'reconnect media' prompt, or are you getting a window that says 'The movie file "------" cannot be found. Without this file, the movie cannot play properly.
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Try this and post back.
K

Backing-up: External Hard Drive to External Hard Drive with LR5

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