PDF links lost after HDD move, not sync via web

DavidMP
Hello,

I hope somebody can help me with this.
I use Zotero to manage my article reference (I'm a scientist) which contains 2200 items, most of them with a PDF copy of the article attached. It has been working well for two years but the HDD where I store all the information died of old age (It was 5 years old) so I moved over to by backup, made a second backup and all seemed to be well; I can see all my references in Zotero.
The problem I have is that I can no longer click on the attachment and have it open as before, I now get a message saying:
"The attached file could not be found. It may have been moved or deleted outside of Zotero."
however if I click on "Locate" it takes me to the right directory and I can find the file, select it and then it works for that file. Doing this 2000 times is not an option.
I have tried rebuilding the index but this did not help, a database check reported no errors. What can I do?

By the way, I searched the forum and found a few sync problems but this is a different issue (I believe) since all files are residing on a portable data drive (I do not sync via web due to privacy/copyright concerns)

Thanks a lot for your help.

Cheers

David
  • dstillman
    Are these file links or imported files? (In other words, inside or outside your Zotero data directory.)

    Generate a Debug ID for an attempt to load a missing file.
  • DavidMP
    Thanks for your quick response. These files are in a folder (E:/Article Database) external to the Zotero data directory (E:/Articel Database/ZOTERO'S) because I like having the title of the paper as the name of the PDF.

    I submitted a Debug ID; the Debug ID is D1061778899.

    "(2)(+0000000): Attachment file 'F:\Article Database\Zinc content of ZDDP films formed thermally and mechanically.pdf' not found"

    I see now that this is looking for the files in drive F: which no longer exists. I will see if renaming the current drive to F: is possible and if so whether it solves the problem; in any case the Zotero directory was recognized automatically.

    Cheers

    David
  • DavidMP
    Hello again,

    This worked. Thanks for your help. For further reference, had I not been able to change the drive letter is there a place within Zotero where the links are kept so a batch file would be able to rename them all?

    Thanks

    David
  • adamsmith
    edited October 7, 2010
    not easily no - you'd have to modify the .sql file. While not un-doable, that's decidedly on the techie side of things. Batch editing in general (i.e. for all fields) is planned, though.

    edit: oops - what Dan says of course.
  • dstillman
    (Modify the .sqlite database, not the .sql file.)
  • John Stevenson
    Modifying the sqlite database isn't too hard.

    1) Install sqlitebrowser (http://sourceforge.net/projects/sqlitebrowser/)
    2) Close Firefox to unlock the database file
    3) Load zotero.sqlite
    4) In the 'Execute SQL' tab, enter the following SQL string:

    update itemAttachments
    set
    path = replace(path, '/oldfolder/Articles', '/newfolder/Articles')

    5) Press Execute Query
    6) Save changes and close the database
    7) Reopen Firefox
  • adamsmith
    to be safe, though, you should back up your library doing that.
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