Light Room Catalog (lrcat) file recovery

BigLue

Does anyone know which file recovery software can recover a .lrcat file type or any light room file ? I have not seen a vender that explicitly states they support finding light room files.

I formatted my windows "C" drive and need to recover my lrcat.

basflt

no
there exist several recovery software's [ google for it ] , but
they can only recover if the files are not overwritten

these tools can recover any file-type , ircat too

if the drive is only formatted , you may try , but change of recovery is small

LR has a backup function , but that makes no sense if you have but the backup on C:

arodney

Or just rebuld em (no harm done other than the time it takes). Select All, Library>Previews>Render Previews (Standard or 1:1). Go take a long break

basflt

rebuild the previews does not rebuild the catalog , neither the made adjustments

if C: is formatted all is gone and windows + LR is newly installed
without backup on another volume it is very difficult to restore entire catalog
[ i assume the RAWs are on another disk then C: ]

arodney

My bad, did confused irdata with ircat. Got to back that up (ideally with the images and if not using DNGs, xmp files).

basflt

you should allways backup
windows , norton , roxio , they all give you option to make a ghost-image of your entire drive(s)
did i mention lightroom backup ?
additionally , you can make restore-points in windows

only after that is done , then format and re-install