Preparing for a few week getaway during which I need to work on photos and on PS, I've duped all my LR files from the drive on which they normally reside to another and more portable drive. I did this using Carbon Copy Cloner. So now I have not only the catalog and accompanying files but all the photo files on the traveling drive.

But, alas, (and you could see this coming) as I open LR from the traveling drive I have a lot -- A LOT -- of question marks appearing. "File Offline or Missing" messages.

My attempts to "Find Missing File" are not availing.

Please, someone, walk me through this.

Much appreciated.

Jack Perkins

Jack,
Instead of copying all your files to your portable why don't you use Lightroom's Export to catalog function? Be sure to include negative files and previews (this will save time later).

Did you make the external a bootable backup? And if so, have you tried booting from the external?

And to everyone else, does this mean that Lightroom can only access files from/on the boot drive?

No, Lightroom can access files on non-boot drives, at least on a Mac. I have my catalog on one drive (non-boot) and my files on another drive (non-boot).