 Dawn Cagle |
Computer Crashed.....Ate my pics! Our computer crashed and took over 8 months worth of pictures with it! My husband was able to recover most of them but a few are damaged. Some have a white stripe that is easy enough to fix, but some seem to have broke down somehow. They look grainy and just not as crisp as before. Is there anyway to fix them?
|
|
|
|
||
- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
Probably not all the way. Probably looking at images with partial data. Look a record with scratches. If you recovered them by just getting the computer going again, try using a recovery program. Burn cd's or dvd's every no and then.
|
|
|
|
||
|
W. |
I don't think you need to be convinced anymore of the value of religiously backing up, do you? DVDs are more convenient for storage than CDs. They hold 7 times more data. TIFFs can be zipped to a fraction of their original file sizes without image quality loss.
|
|
|
|
||
|
JOHN R. ROLLASON |
Same thing happened to me a few years ago, lost over 100,000 images. I used recovery software from Phoenix technologies and got most of them back, still lost about 15,000. As a result I fitted a second hard drive and now store all pictures on that,if the computer crashes again I will not lose the pictures.
|
|
|
|
||
|
W. |
Harddisks are volatile and a lot less reliable for storage than optical media. Harddisks crash.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Dawn Cagle |
I assumed he was backing up my pics along with business files every few days and, well, you know what they say about "assuming"... If they are stored on an external drive then this can happen again???? What brand/type of DVD's would you recommend?
|
|
|
|
||
|
W. |
Any big brand top-tier quality. But since CDs' and DVDs' materials degrade chemically over time – research quotes a 'lifetime' of between 5 and 15 years – I take no chances and burn new ones every 2 years. Two copies of each. One copy is stored off-site.
|
|
|
|
||
|
- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
Others quote longer.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Pete H |
There are two types of backup..Only two. Those who do..and those who wish they did.
|
|
|
|
||
|
john smith |
Dawn, I store all my photos on a external hard drive as my working source. These are then backed up to CD. I don't backup to DVD because there is no defined standard for DVDs and as times and drive technology changes, recovery could become an issue. An external HD is not as susceptible to crashes for a couple of reasons. 1) you can make it dedicated to your photo work only thereby reducing its usage, 2) you can turn it off when not in use without turning the whole computer off. One other suggestion, which I'm sure you're following...never, ever combine your data (documents, pictures, other media) on the same drive as your operating system and applications. This will significantly reduce the chance that system failures will impact your data.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Ariel Lepor |
And now we all see the value in using Mac OS X Leopard with Time Machine and an external hard-drive, instead of a Windows-based computer, to trust with your photos. Even if you install Windows on it as a virtual computer using something like VMware, Time Machine will back everything up. You can either do that, or be careful to constantly back-up your files.
|
|
|
|
||
|
- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
Actually external drives are what people with many files as their business use to archive. With the amount they hold, the quickness to get stuff on them, and their small sizes they come in, it's better for them than dvd's. May not be necessary for the home.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Ariel Lepor |
Come on, for about $100 on a 500GB external hard-drive you can forget about DVDs forever! In the long run, it is sure worth it. Not to mention for all those who wouldn't take the time to regularly back up their files (about 98% of the population).
|
|
|
|
||
|
This old forum is now archived. Use improved Forum here
Report this Thread |
||