I'm sorry that this happened to you, but you'll almost certainly be able to recover all of your edits. Also, your actual source images and everything you've exported are not affected in any way, as this issue only affects the main .PHD data file the PhotoDirector opens when it starts up.

Another user faced this exact same problem only 2 weeks ago, and a quick search, or even looking at the list of recent PhotoDirerctor forum posts would have lead you straight to the solution. Hopefully the steps there will allow you recover your previously working .PHD file: Basically all you need to do is restore your last backup and everything should be fine.

You may need to go back more than one version if the last backup was made after the problem started. Please post back here if you have any problems or other questions.

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

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You did not specify which version of PhotoDirector you are inquiring about. There may be an easy way to get it all back. This is for PhD10. If you use onedrive then it may be included in the bottom path.

Try this: Open File explorer. Go to Pictures/PhotoDirector/10.0 or whatever/user name/*.phd. Open that phd file and it should open PhotoDirector. Click on the Library tab and you should see all those folders again.

EDIT: optodata answered first. You may want to try the above first if you are using PhotoDirector 10.

This step-by-step workflow provides a possible solution if folders in the library are missing. I.e. after a crash of an external drive.

The prerequisite is that a backup of the project has been made, which has not been used yet. (!)

The situation
I experienced a crash of an external drive, while all my PD 11 photos (project name 'All Photos') were on that drive. TG I had a backup of all the files somewhere else, so I could copy them back into a new external hard drive.

Although the photos were copied back from the backup, the new drive had a different name and drive letter.
Also, I changed the structure of the folders before opening PD11 again, because it suited me better.
The name of the subfolders was kept the same.
After opening PD11, I saw the 'missing picture' window pop up and I started searching for all the photos.

I was surprised I did not see the folder structure in the library portion of the project 'All photos' after doing the search.
Cyberlink customer service could not come up with a solution.
The issue is that you would expect that when PD11 does find the pictures, it would automatically generate the folder structure.
Or that the 'search missing folder option' is available.
But not so

The solution
This is how I regenerated the (new) structure:

The prerequisite is that a backup of the project has been made, which has not been used yet. (!)
Closing (i.e. saving) the reconstructed project will overwrite that file, so it is advised to make a backup (Ctrl-C, Ctrl V) of the <project name>.phd file (and 3 related folders bcmgr, faceme and cache) to another location before you follow the steps below.

The steps are as follows:

1. Open the backup file of the project. PD 11 will start and PD 11 will report that pictures are missing.
DO NOT search for those pictures yet!
(It is what I did, but then the folder structure will not be rebuilt)
2. Open the left side of the screen (tab 'project'), open 'smart collection' to see how many pictures are in the project.
3. Unfold the folder structure in the same pane and note that question marks are in front of the folders. Also, unfold the subfolders if any.
4. Right-click on the question mark and select 'Search for missing folder'.
5. Open the correct location of that folder and click OK. PD should now show the photos again and the folder name is shown in the library.
6. Do the same for all other missing (sub)folders.
7. Within the library, the folder structure will be reconstructed step by step while fully executing step 6.
8. Should any picture still be missing, then use the search picture option.
Note Should you point PD11 to the wrong folder by mistake, searching the missing photos will correct that wrong folder automatically.
9. Set the backup option to your preference (i.e. daily, weekly, ..) using the options icon in the top bar (left of the 'bell')
10. Select another location for that backup file to be stored
Note: I created folder names for each project since otherwise, the backups of each project overwrite each other. Of course, within each PD 11 < project name> you should point to the correct backup location
11. Create a backup of the project.
12. Close PD11
13. Move the backup files (2 folders and a .phd file) you used in step 1 (which now should have a recent date timestamp) to the folder where all your PD projects are stored. Next time open PD 11 from that location.


In following the steps above, I managed to reconstruct the folders within the project.
Problem solved