Everybody....Back-Up your pics TODAY!!!!!

[bvar22]

My Hard Drive threw a rod over the weekend, and I was unable to access any files on that drive.
That particular drive held all the pictures that I have taken since March when I bought the new camera.
The Hard Drive that failed was less than 6 months old installed in a computer that was assembled less than 6 months ago. The loss was sudden, and without warning. I was editing and regrouping fireworks photos (about 400, I shot 4 different displays over the 4th weekend) when I heard two loud "POPS" over the audio and.......nothing. The machine tried to reboot, but froze at a blank screen.

I had grown lazy and complacent, but not without reason. I have been messing with computers since the late 80's. My first (IBM 8088) didn't have a mouse, and there was no internet, only Bulletin Boards that you accessed though the phone lines at >900 baud. I've been assembling my own systems since then. In the 16 or so years, I have NEVER had a virus or HardDrive failure. It just NEVER happens to ME!

I had some "Disk Tools" floppys in an old dusty box, but none of them work with the XP file system, (NTFS). Nothing I could do would even recognize the partitions, much less give me access to any files on the disk. I was forced to assume a stoic position and take solace in the fact that I had about 120 of my favorite shots parked at my website, though all of them were in reduced size and jpg format. I had to say goodbye to about 2000 Hi-Res Photos I had taken over the Spring and early Summer.

I was also very disturbed by the failure of my computer. This NEVER happens to ME!
When I opened the cases to install another HardDrive, I discovered the problem....my own negligence.
Cat hair and dust had accumulated on the graphics card fan and chip fans. I regularly vacuum the screens on the outside of the box, but had no idea that so much had entered the box and clogged the internal fans. Under the load of transferring the large .JPG files to different partitions (heavy load), the HardDrive or chips overheated and shut down, scrambling files and partition tables.


I was able to eventually recover many files (JOY!) I thought were hopelessly lost, but it required several days of tedious work.

SO, BACK UP YOUR STUFF today!

[Blue_In_AK]

1. Very good advice...

That's why I just had a DVD writer installed in my computer last week because I had probably thousands of pictures on here. I had some issues with the drive - it still won't write RWs -- but at least I'm getting my pix off onto DVD+Rs. It freed up about 5% of my space, which is a good thing, too. I'm glad to hear that you were able to recover most of your stuff. I have a program loaded on my computer that's supposed to do that, too, but thankfully I've never had to use it.

[regnaD kciN]

2. I may be anal-retentive...

...but I store all my photos on a second internal drive (not the boot drive). I then back up that directory to an external hard drive and two DVD-Rs, one of which is kept "off-site" at all times. While nothing is 100% secure, I think it would take a pretty huge disaster to wipe out all my files...

[bvar22]

3. Sounds bulletproof to me.

I am adopting a routine like yours, and scheduling regular backups.
I just got lazy.

[Whoa_Nelly]

4. Same here

On a flash/stick drive

[electricmonk]

5. My HD died about a month ago

My power supply went up in a puff of smoke and the only other component it took with it was of course my hard drive. I had a partial back up but it wasn't everything on it and nothing from the last few months. I got lazy and careless too. The day it happened I had actually gone out and priced external drives because I knew I was behind and didn't feel like using a bunch of cds to back it up but I thought I could catch something on sale and put off the purchase.

After it happened I used that as an excuse to buy a brand new computer with a dvd burner and an external hard drive. I love the new system though. Went from a 950mhz AMD Athlon Thunderbird with 384mb of memory to a dual core AMD 3800+ with a gig, soon to be 2 gigs of memory. I used to be able to go make myself a sandwich while running a Photoshop filter on a large image now it's done before I can lean back in my chair.

[Fovea]

6. I sympathize

something similar happened to me a month ago.
I only lost a few hundered pics.

[TahitiNut]

7. 250 GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive - $130

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0001DYUJ8/103-1541625-1196622?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=172282

[Touchdown]

8. Nice. They recycled a golf ball too!

Does it come in a Firewire version?

I have the LaCie Porche FW HD. 160G. Had it for a year. Only one instance that it didn't appear on the desktop. Disc Warrior fixed that.