46 replies to this topic

[Muppet81]

Hi

Bought a new laptop and wanting to transfer all my Roots Magic to it.

 

I have read the Magic Guides for copying a RM DB to a new computer and also the one for back up and restore a RM DB.  I should be OK, but I am not sadly.

 

My data was backed up to an external hard drive.  I have installed RM to my new computer using my registration key. 

 

I then restored the back up file from my external hard drive, for my first and main tree.  I did not see an option to restore the media at that point.  The media is also on the external hard drive, within the RM backup folder.

 

My family tree loaded fine, but there is no media.  

 

I went to Media Gallery - Tools - Fix broken links  I directed the browse to the file for that tree, within the Media folder.  It hasn't worked.

 

This PC>SAMSUNG (E;)>File-History>Pam>Pam-Laptop> C>Users>Documents> Roots Magic 7 Backup>

Shows 3 folders

Folder 1 Media Folder (empty)

Folder 2 Media Galbraith Martin Tree

Folder 3 The Goostry Haughton Family Tree_Media (this is the tree I am trying to transfer at the moment

Then the backup files  all ending .rmgb

 

Could anyone give me any help please?  Feeling very worried. Not at all technical with this stuff.  Out of comfort zone.  Simple explanations appreciated please.

 

[Jerry Bryan]

You can backup RM with media or backup RM without media. If you backup without media, then a restore cannot restore the media. Which way did you backup? It sounds like you backed up without media.

 

That being said, backing up with media seems like the obvious choice. But for many people much of the time, backing up with media is not a very good choice. There are three problems. The first is that such a backup can take a very long time and can make a very large backup file. The second is that a restore with media can take a very long time. The third is that a restore with media will put your media files all in one large folder (no subfolders) and your media files will be in a different folder than they were when you started.

 

So for many people much of the time, backing up media and restoring media from outside of RM is a better choice. It sounds like this is what you did since your media is in a separate folder on your external hard drive. It sounds like what you need to do to complete the process of moving your RM to your new laptop is to copy that media folder from the external hard drive to your new laptop. RM will NOT do it for you. If you want RM to move your media files for you, you need to do the backup with media followed by restore with media process. Whatever process you used to get the media folder from your old computer to your external hard drive should be reversed to get the media folder from your external hard drive to your new laptop.

 

At this point, RM may or may not be able to access your media files on your new laptop, depending on your folder and subfolder structure on your new laptop. If you have the same Windows userid on the new laptop as on the old computer and you you put your media folder in exactly the same place on the new laptop with the same folder name as on your old computer, then RM should see the media files with no further ado. Otherwise, you will need to run the fix broken links procedure from within RM or else run the Search>Search and Replace>Multimedia Filenames procedure from within RM. Either way will work. The Search and Replace way of doing it will run much faster than the fix broken links procedure, but Search and Replace requires that you understand Windows folders and file paths pretty well.

 

Jerry

 

[Muppet81]

Thank you Jerry. I will try to get my head round it all.

I did back up without Media on my old laptop, so yes, the Media is in a seperate location.

I am currently copying all my files and folders onto my new laptop.

will see if I can then relink the Media.

All my stuff is backing up to One Drive for storage. I wonder if this would be an added complication when trying to replicate an exact path?

[John_of_Ross_County]

For either a new computer or a new version of RootsMagic:

1] Make a Folder for RootsMagic Version 7

  2] Under this RM7 folder, Make 5 folders:

       Data Ver7

       Backup Ver 7

      Gedcom V7

       Media V7

       Reports V7 

 

Then test your folder structure to make certain that all files get created in the correct folder.

 

If you have another disk in addition to the "C:" drive, make the backup folder on the second disk drive.  I suppose the backup folder could be on a flash drive, BUT you would need to have the flash drive available each time you plan to make a backup.  Of course you can do a backup to a flash drive manually without waiting for the almost automatic backup on exiting RM.

[Muppet81]

Thank you both for your advice.  I think I understand what you are saying.  But I think I may have more serious problems now.  I will try to explain. 

 

I have the RM software on my new laptop

 

I have a backup of the database and of the media file on my external hard drive.

 

Having read your advice, I now understand the implication of doing my backups without data

 

I have restored the database onto my new laptop but of course have all the dreaded red crosses on my media.  

 

I have done this process previously on two other laptops with only minor issues.  I wonder if the cloud storage is causing me a problem?

 

I have tried the Media gallery - Tools- Fix broken links but of course this is searching on the C; drive and presumably not finding the Media file, which Microsoft One Drive has now synced to One Drive, leaving the C: Roots Magic Media folder empty.  Assuming that this means the file path is totally wrong. 

 

I would love to go back to my old laptop. which is working fine, albeit neither my mouse nor any of the USB ports work since MS forced its recent update on me.  I would like to perhaps make a new backup, this time with data.  I can't as I cannot connect my external drive due to the USB ports not working.  

 

I don't have either a Dropbox or a Google Drive account.  

 

Feeling sick at the thought of having lost so many years of family research.  Now totally out of my depth and scared.

[Trebor22]

Muppet81 wrote:-

I would love to go back to my old laptop. which is working fine, albeit neither my mouse nor any of the USB ports work since MS forced its recent update on me.  I would like to perhaps make a new backup, this time with data.  I can't as I cannot connect my external drive due to the USB ports not working.  

 

I don't have either a Dropbox or a Google Drive account.  

 

Feeling sick at the thought of having lost so many years of family research.  Now totally out of my depth and scared.

 

Most of the online storage accounts are free  up to a point (MS onedrive for example offers 5gb of free storage) so you might open an account with one of them and use that to copy between your 2 laptops or alternatively perhaps 'share' your old laptops hard drive (or relevant folders) on your home network so you can access them from your new laptop and copy the files you need - google turns lots of sites with instructions on how to share a folder in win 10

 

Good luck!

[Muppet81]

Muppet81 wrote:-

I would love to go back to my old laptop. which is working fine, albeit neither my mouse nor any of the USB ports work since MS forced its recent update on me.  I would like to perhaps make a new backup, this time with data.  I can't as I cannot connect my external drive due to the USB ports not working.  

 

I don't have either a Dropbox or a Google Drive account.  

 

Feeling sick at the thought of having lost so many years of family research.  Now totally out of my depth and scared.

 

Most of the online storage accounts are free  up to a point (MS onedrive for example offers 5gb of free storage) so you might open an account with one of them and use that to copy between your 2 laptops or alternatively perhaps 'share' your old laptops hard drive (or relevant folders) on your home network so you can access them from your new laptop and copy the files you need - google turns lots of sites with instructions on how to share a folder in win 10

 

Good luck!

Thanks. I already have a MS Onedrive account and am using this.  I have uploaded my Roosts Magic back up files and the Roots Magic Media file to my new laptop and hence it is on MS Onedrive.  The fix links tool doesn't seem to work.  I assume because it searches on the C:drive and the Media folder is on Once drive.  

 

Being thick here as all new to me.  When you suggest network to share between my old and new laptop, do you mean just connect them via a USB cable???

[dhwalt]

If you are unhappy with OneDrive then Copy the contents of your external backup Media folder to the new RM Media folder and get everything working before proceeding, as follows:

 

With the sync completed you should have at least one copy of the original Media folder in the cloud, in your case OneDrive:

 

Go to your online OneDrive account and check that the media folder is present and contains your files.

 

There should be a OneDrive icon in the taskbar notification area (bottom right of the display).

 

Right click the icon to open a context menu - click settings then open the Choose folders tab.

 

Make sure that your Media folder is selected.

 

The above now means that you will have two copies of the media folder that are synchronized - a OneDrive local copy on the laptop and a OneDrive copy in the cloud. Add a media file to the Media folder, on the laptop, and it will upload to the One Drive account. Add a media file to the online OneDrive account and it will download to your laptop. Don’t unlink OneDrive but you can stop OneDrive login if circumstances require it. Example - stop the auto login - you will be out of sync - restart OneDrive and sync will re-establish.

 

Now when you fix broken links direct RM7 to the Media folder in OneDrive (the local folder on your laptop).

 

IF there has been a disaster i.e. an empty folder in OneDrive, on the Microsoft website, connect your external drive to the new laptop - COPY (not Move) your media folder to OneDrive on your laptop and let synchronization proceed. It will take a long… time, be patient, have a coffee, think positive thoughts and repeat the above!

 

Hope that helps - Dave

[Jerry Bryan]

The first thing to remember about OneDrive is that from the perspective of your apps such as RM, OneDrive is not some mysterious cloud somewhere on the Internet. Rather, it's a folder on your own hard disk on your own computer. Then there is a OneDrive app that copies the contents of the OndDrive folder on your own hard disk on your own to computer to some mysterious cloud somewhere on the Internet. So before you even purchased your two machines, you should have had two copies of all your media files. One copy was in the OneDrive folder on your own hard disk on your old computer. The other copy was in some mysterious cloud somewhere on the Internet.

 

It actually sounds to me as if your media files are already on your new computer. If I were able to sit down with you at your new computer, the first thing I would do would be to look at it's hard disk see if your media files are already there. They may even be there twice. If you have OneDrive set up on your new computer, then the OneDrive app on the new computer should have already copied your media files from the mysterious cloud on the Internet to the OneDrive older on your new computer. And you said you already copied your media files from your external hard disk to you the hard disk on your new computer.

 

So can you get on your new computer and see the media files anywhere? This would be without RM running at all.

 

Jerry

 

[Trebor22]

 

 

 

.  When you suggest network to share between my old and new laptop, do you mean just connect them via a USB cable???

Assuming you have both of your laptops connected to a broadband router at home (via network cables or wifi) you already have a 'home network' with both devices connected to it, sharing files across your network requires changing settings on the laptop you want  to copy files from - google can help with this - share folders on win 10  brings up lots of hits.

If as suggested above you already have access to the files you need via OneDrive it would seem easier to follow the suggestions others have made above.

Good luck!

[Muppet81]

The first thing to remember about OneDrive is that from the perspective of your apps such as RM, OneDrive is not some mysterious cloud somewhere on the Internet. Rather, it's a folder on your own hard disk on your own computer. Then there is a OneDrive app that copies the contents of the OndDrive folder on your own hard disk on your own to computer to some mysterious cloud somewhere on the Internet. So before you even purchased your two machines, you should have had two copies of all your media files. One copy was in the OneDrive folder on your own hard disk on your old computer. The other copy was in some mysterious cloud somewhere on the Internet.

 

It actually sounds to me as if your media files are already on your new computer. If I were able to sit down with you at your new computer, the first thing I would do would be to look at it's hard disk see if your media files are already there. They may even be there twice. If you have OneDrive set up on your new computer, then the OneDrive app on the new computer should have already copied your media files from the mysterious cloud on the Internet to the OneDrive older on your new computer. And you said you already copied your media files from your external hard disk to you the hard disk on your new computer.

 

So can you get on your new computer and see the media files anywhere? This would be without RM running at all.

 

Jerry

 

Thank you Jerry.  I so wish I did have someone like you here. 

 

Until the new laptop arrived I was not using One Drive.

 

My backup was done previously to an external hard drive. I had left the "backup media" box unchecked.  As suggested, perhaps why I am not on restoring given the option of restoring the media.  

 

On my new laptop I allowed One Drive to become my back up option.  I have, from the external drive, transferred over the Roots Magic Folders containing my database back ups and also the RM Media folder.  As you say, I now do have these on both my C drive (though presumably just a link to the actual file on Onedrive? ) and they appear on my Onedrive app.  So, they ARE there.  But I was not given the option of restoring the Media when I restored the database and the Fix links tool is not doing anything either.  

 

Every time I try to resolve this, One Drive seems to start uploading yet more files and syncing.  It is now exceeding my 5GB.  

 

[Muppet81]

Jerry

 

Thank you Jerry.  I so wish I did have someone like you here. 

 

Until the new laptop arrived I was not using One Drive.  

 

My backup was done previously to an external hard drive. I had left the "backup media" box unchecked.  As suggested, perhaps why I am not on restoring given the option of restoring the media.  

 

On my new laptop I allowed One Drive to become my back up option.  I have, from the external drive, transferred over the Roots Magic Folders containing my database back ups and also the RM Media folder.  As you say, I now do have these on both my C drive (though presumably just a link to the actual file on Onedrive? ) and they appear on my Onedrive app.  So, they ARE there.  But I was not given the option of restoring the Media when I restored the database and the Fix links tool is not doing anything either.  

 

They are however now in a different file path which the new laptop has created.  

 

Every time I try to resolve this, One Drive seems to start uploading yet more files and syncing.  It is now exceeding my 5GB.  

[Muppet81]

If you are unhappy with OneDrive then Copy the contents of your external backup Media folder to the new RM Media folder and get everything working before proceeding, as follows:

 

With the sync completed you should have at least one copy of the original Media folder in the cloud, in your case OneDrive:

 

Go to your online OneDrive account and check that the media folder is present and contains your files.

 

There should be a OneDrive icon in the taskbar notification area (bottom right of the display).

 

Right click the icon to open a context menu - click settings then open the Choose folders tab.

 

Make sure that your Media folder is selected.

 

The above now means that you will have two copies of the media folder that are synchronized - a OneDrive local copy on the laptop and a OneDrive copy in the cloud. Add a media file to the Media folder, on the laptop, and it will upload to the One Drive account. Add a media file to the online OneDrive account and it will download to your laptop. Don’t unlink OneDrive but you can stop OneDrive login if circumstances require it. Example - stop the auto login - you will be out of sync - restart OneDrive and sync will re-establish.

 

Now when you fix broken links direct RM7 to the Media folder in OneDrive (the local folder on your laptop).

 

IF there has been a disaster i.e. an empty folder in OneDrive, on the Microsoft website, connect your external drive to the new laptop - COPY (not Move) your media folder to OneDrive on your laptop and let synchronization proceed. It will take a long… time, be patient, have a coffee, think positive thoughts and repeat the above!

 

Hope that helps - Dave

Thanks Dave.  That all makes sense to me.  And the database back ups and the Media folder are all there, with the files.  The file paths, however have been changed by the new laptop.  I am trying to find the confidence to try changing these as you outline.  One Drive however is on constant syncing of my media files.  Been at it for over 24 hours now and there are not that many.  so, I can't try much at the moment.

[Jerry Bryan]

I didn't realize that you didn't have OneDrive on your old computer. It also sounds like you files are exceeding your 5GB OneDrive limit. So let me suggest the following approach to the problem. This approach does not involve OneDrive.

• Pause OneDrive for the time being. There should be an icon for OneDrive on your toolbar at the bottom of your Windows screen. Sometimes there are too many icons all to fit, so you might find the OneDrive icon by clicking on a little up arrow icon on your toolbar at the bottom of your Windows screen so you can see the icons that were too many to fit.
• Make a new folder on your new PC for your RM media. Call it whatever you wish, but you might call it something like rm_media. You can put it anywhere you wish, but you might put it under MyDocuments. You probably have a better idea of how you want your files organized than anybody else does.
• Copy your RM media files from your external hard disk to the new rm_media folder you just created.
• Open up RM and run the Fix Broken Links procedure. With OneDrive paused, it should run fairly fast - maybe a few minutes or an hour or two depending on how many media files you have. You can speed things up considerably by selecting the <A folder> option and pointing it to the rm_media folder you created above. That will also prevent the Fix Broken Links procedure from linking to files in your OneDrive folder.

I'm curious about the fact that your new computer is set up with OneDrive since you weren't using it on your old computer. Did you set it up that way, or did it come that way? Microsoft is really pushing for all Windows user to put all their files in OneDrive folder, so your new computer might have come with OneDrive already installed and enabled. Running OneDrive can be a good idea because OneDrive becomes an automatic offsite backup and because it enables you to share files between multiple devices such as two different computers.

 

But there can be any number of gotchas using OneDrive, especially if it's just running automatically and if you are not familiar with how it works. One such gotcha is going past your 5GB free limit.  Another such gotchas is that the RM database doesn't always play will with OneDrive. Your media files should be fine in the OneDrive folder, but I'm worried about your 5GB free limit and I'm worried about your RM database possibly being on the OneDrive folder. But I'm trying to get you set up outside of OneDrive just to get you started. If later you wanted to pay for more than 5GB and move all your media files to OneDrive, that's fine. But let's get you up and running first.

 

Do be aware that the approach I'm suggesting will not include an automatic backup offsite. You would need to backup manually to your external hard drive. But if you are not familiar with OneDrive and its competitors such as DropBox and Google Drive, the external hard drive back up might be the best approach for you to take.

 

Jerry

 

[Muppet81]

Jerry I so appreciate your help here.  Time on my computer has to be grabbed here and there as my 98 year old dad in in end of life stage.  

 

Tried what you suggested.  

 

It did not work.  Also I can only pause One Drive for 24 hours, it will then start syncing again and probably blow a fuse as it will have another folder to try to sync, and no spare capacity.  

 

I have set up several laptops in the past, getting my data on with little issue.  This has seemed fraught. One Drive seems to have been my enemy.  

 

One Drive, which I was not familiar with, did give me little option to refuse it.  Sure it was there somewhere, but well hidden.  

 

Also, when I transferred my files from the external drive to my new laptop, the file name had extra added to it.  I have always made my filenames meaningful.  Now they have for eg. (2018_02_10 10_12_00) added before the file extension.  Could this make it impossible for Roots Magic to find its link?

 

 

 

Think I may delete the new RM media folder so I don't freak One Drive out.  

[Muppet81]

Struggling with quotes.  Apologies.  This is a reply to Jerry.

 

These are a few of the issues which I wonder if they are causing my problems?  Just not sure why some occurred, or how to solve.

 

Here are the two locations of my media files on my old laptop -

 

C:\Users\Pam\Documents\Family Tree Maker\Goostry Family Media\1871 England Census - John James Goostry(2).jpg  - from my old FTM  days but the link still worked

 

C:\Users\Pam\Documents\Roots Magic 7 Backup\media\1911 Census Richard Smith b 1860 Page 1.jpg

 

Since putting the database and folders/files onto the new laptop, the destination now is

C:\Users|holli\One Drive\Documents\Roots Magic7 Backup\Media

 

the path has been changed by the presence of One Drive. Don’t know where the \holli\ bit came from

 

Also, although all the media files are within the new locations on both One Drive and my PC Documents, they have an extra bit in the file name

 

ie. 1939 Register Jack Haughton b 1919.jpeg is now

 

 

1939 Register Jack Haughton b 1919(2017_12_02 10_09_10 UTC).jpg  - I did not add the bit in brackets.  

 

Totally confused.

[Jerry Bryan]

The extra information in the file name is Windows' way of telling you that the files were duplicate. It made duplicate copies, where the original file file had the original name and the second copy had the funny file name.

 

When most recently you were copying from the external hard drive to the new laptop, did you  put the data into a completely new folder or in OneDrive or where did you put it exactly? To avoid deleting anything by accident, I was hoping to put all your media from the external hard drive into a totally new folder that was not in the OneDrive folder at all. Doing it that way, there should none of those funny file names. And doing it that way, we should be able to tell RM's Fix Broken Links process exactly where to find your files, namely in the completely new folder that you made outside of OneDrive.

 

Jerry

 

[Muppet81]

The extra information in the file name is Windows' way of telling you that the files were duplicate. It made duplicate copies, where the original file file had the original name and the second copy had the funny file name.

 

When most recently you were copying from the external hard drive to the new laptop, did you  put the data into a completely new folder or in OneDrive or where did you put it exactly? To avoid deleting anything by accident, I was hoping to put all your media from the external hard drive into a totally new folder that was not in the OneDrive folder at all. Doing it that way, there should none of those funny file names. And doing it that way, we should be able to tell RM's Fix Broken Links process exactly where to find your files, namely in the completely new folder that you made outside of OneDrive.

 

Jerry

 

Hi  Thanks for the explanation on the file name changes.  Good to know that isn't a problem.

I did create a new folder within Documents - RM_Media   I put the files in here  I ran the Fix links tool but nothing found????

OneDrive was paused.  One Drive is now unhappy as it is full and not able to sync anything at all.  I am not liking One Drive at all.

[Jerry Bryan]

I don't know why Fix Broken Links didn't work. The other option is Search>Search and Replace>Multimedia File names. If you use it, you won't actually be changing any file names. Rather, you will be changing file paths.

 

You can look in RM's media gallery to see the file path for any file as it was on your old machine. You should be able to figure out the file paths of where your files are on the new machine.

 

For example, here is a rather longish file path from RM on my system.

C:\Users\jbryan\Dropbox\mybackup\aalevel2\mywebpages\rm_media\birth_folder\peters_arthur_birth_index_page35a.png

The "jbryan" is my Windows userid on my machine. If I went to a new machine where my Windows userid was "jerry", I might user RM's search and replace to change C:\Users\jbryan to C:\Users\jerry   The file path would then become

C:\Users\jerry\Dropbox\mybackup\aalevel2\mywebpages\rm_media\birth_folder\peters_arthur_birth_index_page35a.png

By the way and not to overload you with too much information, the way RM keeps track of media files is called an absolute file path. For users with more than one machine in their home, it can make using RM on more than one of the machines (and not at the same time!!) awkward unless the location of the RM's media files is exactly the same on both machines.  Therefore, another solution to your problem might be to set up your file path on your new machine exactly the same way it was on your old machine. If you did it that way and put your files there on your new machine, the red X's would vanish instantly with no further effort on your part.  Basically, you start out with C:\Users\usersname (where "username" is the Windows userid which has to be the same on both machines). Then, the rest of the structure has to be the same. As you can see, I use Dropbox rather than OneDrive, but the two products operate in a very similar manner. But If I weren't running Dropbox or OneDrive, then I would put my RM media folder under My Documents. Quite a few users also have a separate hard disk (not removable) for their data so you will see things like their data being on D:\ rather than on C:\.

 

In any case, if you can get the file structure the same on both machines and put the RM media in the same place on both machines, then the red X's should vanish. If you can get RM's Search and Replace to work, the red X's should vanish. If you can get Fix Broken Links to work, the red X's should vanish.I'm extremely puzzled as to why Fix Broken Links didn't work. It's like you files really aren't on your new laptop yet.

 

Jerry

[Muppet81]

I don't know why Fix Broken Links didn't work. The other option is Search>Search and Replace>Multimedia File names. If you use it, you won't actually be changing any file names. Rather, you will be changing file paths.

 

You can look in RM's media gallery to see the file path for any file as it was on your old machine. You should be able to figure out the file paths of where your files are on the new machine.

 

For example, here is a rather longish file path from RM on my system.

C:\Users\jbryan\Dropbox\mybackup\aalevel2\mywebpages\rm_media\birth_folder\peters_arthur_birth_index_page35a.png

The "jbryan" is my Windows userid on my machine. If I went to a new machine where my Windows userid was "jerry", I might user RM's search and replace to change C:\Users\jbryan to C:\Users\jerry   The file path would then become

C:\Users\jerry\Dropbox\mybackup\aalevel2\mywebpages\rm_media\birth_folder\peters_arthur_birth_index_page35a.png

By the way and not to overload you with too much information, the way RM keeps track of media files is called an absolute file path. For users with more than one machine in their home, it can make using RM on more than one of the machines (and not at the same time!!) awkward unless the location of the RM's media files is exactly the same on both machines.  Therefore, another solution to your problem might be to set up your file path on your new machine exactly the same way it was on your old machine. If you did it that way and put your files there on your new machine, the red X's would vanish instantly with no further effort on your part.  Basically, you start out with C:\Users\usersname (where "username" is the Windows userid which has to be the same on both machines). Then, the rest of the structure has to be the same. As you can see, I use Dropbox rather than OneDrive, but the two products operate in a very similar manner. But If I weren't running Dropbox or OneDrive, then I would put my RM media folder under My Documents. Quite a few users also have a separate hard disk (not removable) for their data so you will see things like their data being on D:\ rather than on C:\.

 

In any case, if you can get the file structure the same on both machines and put the RM media in the same place on both machines, then the red X's should vanish. If you can get RM's Search and Replace to work, the red X's should vanish. If you can get Fix Broken Links to work, the red X's should vanish.I'm extremely puzzled as to why Fix Broken Links didn't work. It's like you files really aren't on your new laptop yet.

 

Jerry

Yes, my user id is different.  \Pam\ on old laptop    \holli\ on new

 

I need to try to get my head round all this.  Might try the setting of the path so it is identical on new laptop but will have to tackle this tomorrow.  Need to sort out the OneDrive is full issue first.  

I need to sort this before I try creating any new folders and putting any more data on.  Even with One Drive paused, I know it will try to sync after 24 hours.

May have to try to get back to guys I bought laptop from.  They will no doubt sort out the One Drive issue easily.  I am worried about losing stuff, especially as it is now not fully synced. Never having used it before, it is frightening.

 

I so appreciate your help and will try again tomorrow.  I will let you know if I resolve it.