xmp files

[LSSmith]

Background info:

Over a week ago, my external hard drive suffered some kind of abuse that led to corrupted files, which led to being unable to access anything on that drive.

The local IT God performed his wizardry, and recovered nearly everything  (based upon sheer volume of files recovered). Unfortunately, all of the files' names were replaced with whatever number the recovery tool decided to give the files. There is no rhyme or reason to the file numbers, which is making rebuilding my file tree structure very interesting.

In the process of finding and reorganizing the files, I came upon xmp files. If I recall correctly, these files are related to the changes I make to a raw file as I run it through ACR/Photoshop. 

I cannot find a way to match up the xmp files with either the raw or the psd files to which they correspond.

Questions:

1. Should I NOT* waste my time copying xmp files to my new hard drive from the recovery folders? [*capitalized for emphasis, not for yelling.]

2. Since the xmp files cannot be matched up to the corresponding raw and psd files, will the psd files still be usable in Photoshop?

3. If "no", should I not bother with copying the existing psd files to the new hard drive?

4. Are there any other options that I could be pursuing, but am not, out of sheer ignorance?

I can live with having to re-process a raw file. I'd rather not waste time and energy on moving files that can no longer be manipulated because necessary info is no longer linked to the image files.

Thank you, in advance, for your help.

Sincerely,

Stephanie Smith

[Damien Symonds]

4 minutes ago, LSSmith said:

I cannot find a way to match up the xmp files with either the raw or the psd files to which they correspond.

Just to clarify, xmp files only correspond to raw files, never to psd files.

Yes, of course the PSD files are fine.  And so are the raw files, except that they're back to being unedited, unless you can figure out how to match them up.

 

[LSSmith]

Thank you, Damien. I'll put my time and energy where it will be most effective. ?