PSE 8 Not Backing Up Media Files

Question

I have PS Elements 8 (Windows 7 - 64 bit) with 9000 photos cataloged.  It's all fabulous EXCEPT when I do a backup (File->Backup Catalog to CD...) the backup ONLY contains the Catalog files, not the media files.  So the backup of my 27 GB of photos is only 200 MB.
My media files and my catalog files are both on the D: drive (2nd internal HD)... the Program files and Windows are installed on C:. I've tried Reconnecting (all files are connected) and Repairing the catalog (no problems found).  The backup runs just fine with no errors, it's just WAY too small.
I've tried backing up to the C: drive, the D: drive, and to DVDs all with the exact same result.
I've done a simple copy/paste of my entire folder to an external disk, so I DO have things backed up.  But I'd like to use the built-in feature so I can transfer the whole enchilada to my laptop without losing the links (laptop doesn't have a D: drive).
Anybody have any ideas why PSE refuses to backup my media?  Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks!
-Gary

Answer 1

I've been working every which way around trying to get this to work, and it just won't.  Your suggestion ("Method 4") kind of works.  But after screwing around with it the best I could get was "most" of the files reconnected with a lot of them reset to today's date for some inexplicable reason.
The resetting of the date is yet another bug.  The Reconnect command re-reads the metadata from the file, overwriting whatever is in th catalog.  If for some reason the date in the file doesn't match what's in the catalog, the date in the file wins.  And if the file is a format that doesn't support "date taken" metadata (or a format whose metadata PSE doesn't understand, such as PNG or video), then PSE will use the date-modified of the file.
But then why doesn't the "Repair" function work?  When I "Optimize" a damaged catalog why doesn't it throw an error message?
Repair and Optimize only perform a very limited set of low-level database operations -- they can't fix basic bugs in the program.
And how in the world does it allow me to run a "backup" without either actually backing up the files OR giving me an error message?  That's REALLY bad.  A feller would be pretty disappointed to try to run a Restore from that if he hadn't noticed the file size.
Yup, it's a bad bug.  For a number of reasons, I recommend that people with large catalogs use a general-purpose third-party backup:
http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/photoshop-elements-faq.htm#_Backing_up_your
And why DOES it think my D: drive is a removable disk?  Neither my system BIOS nor Windows shows it as "removable".  I've searched the Registry trying to find a spot to reset that for PSE without luck.  There should be a way to correct that (actually PSE just shouldn't make that mistake to start with, of course).
I believe the problem is caused by Windows, at some point in time, reporting to PSE that the drive as "removable".  PSE just records in the catalog what Windows tells it.  However, if later on Windows reports a different type (e.g. because you've upgraded to a new version of Windows), then PSE won't update the catalog.  In general, PSE's handling of multiple drives is abysmal, but some of that comes from the Windows legacy drive architecture, which is also a mess.
The only way to fix this is to get a low-level tool that can open the database file, e.g. SQLite Database Browser, and make the change.
I'm anxiously awaiting version 8.1.
Adobe almost never ships updates to an existing version of PSE.  You have to buy the next version (e.g. 9), which ships each fall.