Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Picasa warning.

Damn Mickey! I know you're sick! I don't trust the computer or any online service. I have a 300GB external storage device that is about the size of an iPod for pictures and I put videos on DVDs (keep the tapes too). My wife and I go through photos after we have taken a couple hundred or so and get the good ones developed/printed. I let PhotoBucket and my hard drive do what they will with gun pictures and anything I save off the Internet.

Odd, I just went to the site and upgraded this afternoon with no problems. Usually if there's a chance of something like that I'm 1st in line for trouble.

I don't understand how uploading to Picasa can jeopardize the pics. You should still have them on your hard drive after doing this, unless you deleted them from your operating system software after you uploaded to Picasa...?

I have uploaded pics to Photobucket, Shutterfly and Picasa, but they are all still in "My Pics" on my PC.

It was not uploading the pictures to Picasa that was the problem. It was an "upgrade" touted by Picasa that deleted all my old photos. Fortunately, I just learned that my son-in-law saved all my photos when he wiped my hard drive on the new computer to get rid of Windows 7 and installed Windows XP.

I have come to totally mistrust all upgrades. What I have is working just fine without any software people trying to make things better for me. I like Windows XP and do not like Windows 7. In fact, I liked Windows 3.1 just fine and saw no reason to change.

Mickey, there are only 2 kinds of folks. Those who have lost data, and those who will.

Make backups! Spend 50 bucks for a usb hard disk at the very least...

Anything important should be three places.

John

John, I'll probably do that right away. Thanks for the advice.

Hi Mickey

Well, I did not state it, but I lost a small amount of data 20 years ago -- so I had to learn the hard way!

Rather than spend more on a single bigger usb hard disk, buy two smaller ones. So, not all of your eggs will be in a single basket...

Here you can find 160Gb hard disks from $59 (maybe less -- I did not look too long).

I would avoid Western Digital brand (some (not all) of their models have had quality control problems but I do not know the problematic models. Seagate models usually have a 5 year warranty, and they have a pretty good reputation too.

The important thing is to make a regular backup (say on the 15h of every month at least), then put your backup in a safe place (NOT attached to your computer -- when attached, files on a USB hard disk can be wiped out by software gone berserk or a virus).

Cheers,

John

I have my pictures on the hard drive, a USB flash stick and a second hard drive. Plus a bunch of them on photobucket. The eggs in one basket is a GOOD simile.

OH, I am really sorry to hear what happened and VERY glad you have a backup.

I wouldn't trust a flash drive for anything important.

I would suggest an additional internal HD (call it the "data drive") for data & files (non OS) and an external USB drive for backup. Point your user profile documents/folders to the "data drive". I'd also suggest using a mirroring backup software (disk space is cheap) WITHOUT any compression or magic SO everything stored on your "data drive" is mirrored to the external USB drive. At the very least use Windows backup utility and set up a weekly automatic backup. A 1TB WD elements (USB 2.0) is $99 at Amazon and 1.5TB is $124 - disk space is cheap.

Losing important data sucks and losing memories sucks worse.

cheers,
stoma

That is why it is only 1 of three in my strategy.

MColeman - I'm glad that your SIL had saved your photos!

For folks searching for files that have disappeared through a software glitch or operating system re-install without a complete re-format, the files are usually still there if you know how to find them. You would need to know the EXACT name of a file and the file type extension. Go to "start, search" (in W2000, don't know if XP is labeled that way) and type in the file name with the extension. If the file shows up in the results, right-click and select "properties". That will tell you what folder to look in for the file, and if you can find one file, other similar files should be in the same location or close to it. If you don't have an EXACT file name, you can use a "wild card" search by putting an asterisk in the search line followed by a period and the file type extension (eg: *.jpg)
You will get a lot more than you bargained for, but scroll through the list for anything familiar.
Note: to make this work, you need to go to the control panel, "Folder Options" and set your 'puter to "show hidden files and folders".
I thought I had lost a lot of files through a re-install of Windows but a bit of searching found them where I didn't think to look.

The most secure storage is on a CD or DVD, but only on the best quality discs you can find. Life expectancy of these varies widely, but one of the brands recommended is Taiyo Yuden. (Probably have to purchase online.) Another good one seems to be Verbatim.
I would NEVER trust a floppy for any long term storage.
Just my 2 cents.

Myron

Thanks, Myron. I'll give this a try and I appreciate the help.
Mickey