Loaded pictures into PE7 without titles... oops! Can I just start over?

Question

Hi,
Hoping someone can give me step-by-step instructions to correct my problem.  I was so excited to get PE7 that I didn't read anything about it.  I just went and imported the pictures from my external drive (used to use Canon Zoombrowser).  Now I have some issues...
1) I want the "master" photo/video files on my laptop not my external drive.  I didn't realize I wasn't copying the files.  I now understand that PE7 only creates a link and I don't want the link to be with my external drive.  (I'll use the external drive later just to backup the files.)
2) I neglected to import the titles for the 11,000+ photos/videos.
3) Can I move the star ratings too?  I'd hate to redo them.
I'm thinking it would be easiest to just start over but I don't know how to do that.  From reading other threads I think that reinstalling PE7 won't wipe out the links?  Please help!
TIA!!

Answer 1

*Eva* wrote:
Hi,
Thanks for the response and sorry for the newby questions, but I still need help.  I spent last night trying to sort this out.  First, the photos I already had on my laptop in My Pictures (because I wanted to print them) show in the Organizer as being in folders by their date?  Did I do something to make it do that?  because I don't like everything sorted by date as I have my own organization structure and like to work in the folder view.
Second, I mispoke originally as I DO want to keep the current files on my external drive until I can verify everything is there.  I read on another thread that sometimes things get deleted.  I did a "move" of one file following the above instructions and it did remove it from my external drive.  So what I really want to do is to make a copy on my laptop and that will be the master where I make changes and I intend later to backup the changed files to external drive.  How do I do that?
When I did try to move a folder that had one photo plus three subfolders full of photos it only moved the one photo and not the 3 subfolders nor their contents.  How could I have moved the folders and photos from the external drive while still maintaining the organization structure?  (I'm moving from Canon Zoombrowser.)
Lastly, in the Pictures folder of my laptop I see an "Adobe" folder.  Is that where they want me to save my pictures?  Just wondering what it's purpose is.
Wow, that's a lot of stuff. First of all, let me say that it appears that you are thinking in terms of Windows folders, and I always recommend people stop doing that. Organizer works much more effectively if you use Organizer's organizing tools, such as tags, captions, notes, collections/albums instead of using folders, and stop using folder view. The only time you would use folder view is to specifically move files from one hard drive to another. Thus, for now, I recommend you simply stop worrying about folders by date. I have no idea how they got that way, unless you used some software to move the folders off your camera and onto your computer.
Have you done any organizing yet in Organizer? Specifically, have you added tags, captions, notes, GPS map locations, or created albums or creations, or edited pictures or stacked pictures? I'm thinking now that if you haven't done much in Organizer, you might be better off starting over. If you have done a lot in Organizer, then you would need to move the folders to wherever you want them to be by using PSE, not Windows.
Once you have everything working, and the originals are on your laptop, then to do a backup of all photos, you would again use PSE commands. Use File->Backup Catalog, and point PSE to your EHD.
When you did the move of a folder with three subfolders, how did you do this move?
Regarding the Adobe folder ... as I said ... folders should not be relevant any more when you work inside the Organizer. It simply doesn't matter where you put your photos for PSE to work properly.