Cannot reconnect / specify volume in PSE 8

Question

I just upgraded from an older version of PSE to PSE 8 for windows.  I am running PSE in Parallels on a Mac.  The older version of PSE worked fine in this configuration.  However, when I upgraded to PSE 8, it seems to be looking for the picture volume in a UNC path established by parallels (//.PSF/Home) rather than by mapped drive (P:\).  As a result, all my photos (all 11K of them) are offline.  I cannot find anywhere that I can tell PSE  to look for the volume at P:\.  All I have found is an option to try to tell it to reconnect to the UNC volume (which is the correct path btw)... which for some reason it fails to do.  Any ideas?  HELP!
Thanks,
Kyle

Answer 1

Thanks John.   So here's the latest.  Per your suggestion, using PSE5 I moved my photos to the parallels C:\Photos directory.  Then converted the catalog with PSE8.  Everything seemed to work out fine.  All the pictures were online.  Then with PSE8 I moved the files to the P: drive, which is mapped to //.psf/Home/Pictures/Library.  A couple things.  The folder viewer in PSE8 doesn't allow you to drill down on directories outside of where it thinks your photos are.  This wasn't an issue for me since I was simply moving my photos directory from root C to root P.
The big bummer however is that with the move, all the files became disconnected and I cannot get them to reconnect.  In the file viewer they are shown at //.psf/Home/Photos.  When I click on an individual photo, the properties say it is at [//.psf/Home]\\.psf\Home\Photos\<subdir>.  The output from the psedb tool is below.  Do you have any other suggestions?  I'd really like to keep my files on a mapped drive (//.psf/Home/...) so that I can access them from my mac.
psedbtool version 1.08
Opening catalog P:\Catalog\AngieKyle\AngieKyle\catalog.pse8db
Photoshop Elements version:      8
Total files               :  10859
Total files missing       :  10859
Total files offline       :      0
Total files wrong volume  :      0
PSE Volume Table
Path used by PSE        : \\.psf\Home
Type                    : network_drive
Status                  : online
Total files             : 10859
Total files missing     : 10859
Total files wrong volume: 0
Description             : //.psf/Home
Serial                  : //.psf/Home
Drive_path_if_builtin   :
Id                      : 174933
Path used by PSE        : P:\Catalog\AngieKyle\AngieKyle
Type                    : database_relative_drive
Status                  : online
Total files             : 0
Total files missing     : 0
Total files wrong volume: 0
Description             : database relative
Serial                  : amoc:database_relative_volume
Drive_path_if_builtin   :
Id                      : 2
Path used by PSE        : C:
Type                    : builtin_drive
Status                  : online
Total files             : 0
Total files missing     : 0
Total files wrong volume: 0
Description             : C:
Serial                  : ACF1-823B
Drive_path_if_builtin   : C:
Id                      : 6207
Windows Drives
Drive  Type             Serial     Path
A:     removable_drive  18D7-772B
C:     builtin_drive    ACF1-823B
D:     readonly_drive   0000-0000
E:     removable_drive  0000-0000
F:     removable_drive  0000-0000
G:     removable_drive  0000-0000
H:     removable_drive  0000-0000
P:     network_drive    0000-0000
Y:     network_drive    0000-0000
Z:     network_drive    0000-0000
Also, I repeated the process above by taking a copy of my original PSE5 DB and moving it with PSE5, importing it into PSE8.  Here's what the psedb tool looks like before attempting to move the the files to the psf directory with PSE8.  Note that I changed some drive mappings prior to doing this.  This looks pretty clean (I think) ... I am beginning to believe that PSE8 just can't handle mapped drives.  Ugh.
psedbtool version 1.08
Opening catalog W:\Catalog\HarrisonPhotos\catalog.pse8db
Photoshop Elements version:      8
Total files               :  10859
Total files missing       :      0
Total files offline       :      0
Total files wrong volume  :      0
PSE Volume Table
Path used by PSE        : W:\Catalog\HarrisonPhotos
Type                    : database_relative_drive
Status                  : online
Total files             : 0
Total files missing     : 0
Total files wrong volume: 0
Description             : database relative
Serial                  : amoc:database_relative_volume
Drive_path_if_builtin   :
Id                      : 2
Path used by PSE        : C:
Type                    : builtin_drive
Status                  : online
Total files             : 10859
Total files missing     : 0
Total files wrong volume: 0
Description             : C:
Serial                  : ACF1-823B
Drive_path_if_builtin   : C:
Id                      : 6207
Windows Drives
Drive  Type             Serial     Path
A:     removable_drive  18D7-772B
C:     builtin_drive    ACF1-823B
D:     readonly_drive   0000-0000
E:     removable_drive  0000-0000
F:     removable_drive  0000-0000
G:     removable_drive  0000-0000
H:     removable_drive  0000-0000
W:     network_drive    0000-0000
X:     network_drive    0000-0000
Y:     network_drive    0000-0000
Z:     network_drive    0000-0000