Despite my recommendation of continuing discussion in the Premiere Elements 9 subforum, I am temporarily posting here again so that anyone subscribing to this thread will be notified.
Here are some references for reading about moving and reconnecting media files that are referenced from an Elements Organizer Catalog
http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/pho ... our_photoshttp://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/pho ... ting_largeThese were written for earlier versions. I think that these principles will still apply to version 9 - but can't verify that.
related comment -
In general, if the photo and video media files will reside on an external USB2 hard drive (or network drive), then you should consider still keeping the Elements Catalog (and its related files) on an internal drive for better performance.
AND ADDITIONAL information -
a posting in the Adobe knowledgebase
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/333/333358.htmlReconnect Missing Files tip - "The Find option in the Reconnect Missing Files dialog box allows you to reconnect all images at once within a folder and all its subfolders."