> I don't understand the "File->Open Recent"
"File" Menu in Lightroom. Select "Open Recent"
>windows search for "lightroom catalog"--each item has a date attached
Those are backup catalogs (otherwise you would see no date). Find them in Explorer and see if in the folder level that is above the backups has a catalog file. Double click on that and Lightroom should open the correct catalog file.
>There are three listings for 6/11, two small files (80 bytes and 2 MB) and one 16 GB
The first one is probably the lock file (extension .lock), the second one is your catalog (appears very small but should have a .lrcat extension) and the third one is the preview database (.lrdata extension). The catalog file is much too small to contain more than a few images. You either by accident removed all the folders, or you created a new empty catalog (easier than it sounds to do completely by accident). You either need to find the real main catalog file using "open recent" or by copying one of the backup catalog files over to the top level and double clicking that (when Lightroom is closed)
