PS Elements catalog problems from Album Starter Edition

Question

I have PS Elements 11 installed on my new notebook. I have copied all my photos from my old PC into the Photos folder on the notbook (running Windows7).  I then imported them into PS Elements. I had them all catalogued on the PC under PS Album  Starter Edition. I have copied the  the catalog  .psa file as suggested in the instructions &  used the convert command under Elements' Manage Calalogs. Everything seemd to go as expected; all my 'Collections' came in as 'Albums' & all my Tags are there.. But  none of the images are being read. All the thumbnails are the generic flower image. It seems tthe catalog is still pointing to the old D: drive on my PC& it wants me to "connect the external drive".  What have I done wrong? Have can I fix this?  I have nearly 9000 photos & hundreds of tags etc.  I will break my heart to lose the cataloging.

Answer 1

Thanks so much, Andaleeb, for your interest in my problem.
The last idea I had was similar to your suggestion - to connect my new
notebook (on which I have PSE11) to the old PC (which has Starter Edition
on it), using Peer to Peer by wireless, so the notebook could see the files
on the PC.
Then Import the images into PSE11 from the "external drive" - this I
managed to do fairly easily.
Then I thought I should be able to access the Catalog file on the PC, in a
similar way from the notebook via the wireless connection.
My thinking was that it then should not be confused about where the images
were actually located; and I would then be able to send a backup
instruction from PSE11 to the files on the PC; and THEN - restore from that
backup, and using the fact that when restoring, PSE11 asks if you want to
relocate the files and catalog to a new location - and I could choose to
relocate them on the notebook.
However, although I managed to import the images into PSE11 easily, I could
not get it to recognize the catalog (.psa) file on the PC via the wireless
connection. I checked & rechecked that I had the relevant folder set
correctly to 'share', but no luck.
I don't know why this was, because it you copy the catalog file to a usb
stick & plug it into the notebook, it can pick it up OK.
So I tried that anyway, and converted the catalog again from the usb stick,
hoping that since the import of the images was via the wireless connect,
PSE11 now 'knew' the images were located on the 'external' PC hard drive;
but still the converted catalog would not function. Same as before - all my
Albums & Tags were listed correctly, but all the image thumbnails changed
from correct images to 'lost' generic Adobe flowers.
At that point, I lost heart & decided I would have to abandon the project &
just start the massive task of re-cataloging. I have a total of 64Gig of
photos, of which about 12Gig were cataloged. Very sad!
Now your suggestion has inspired me to give it one more try. It might make
a difference to have PSE11 on the PC working locally rather than trying to
negotiate the external drive thing. I had forgotten that I can do this with
a trial version.
I will let you know how I go.