PSA and sad day for me....

[Melaine]

BACK UP YOUR PHOTOS PEOPLE!!!!

A week ago our stupid laptop died. We took it into a trusted computer repair and they were able to retrieve "most" of our photos. We bought a new laptop last night and started looking at them. A lot of them are corrupt (corrupted?) and at this point I have no way of knowing which of our pics are there and which are gone forever. Not to mention they are all out of order and we lost all of our chronological folders. Since it will take SIX days for the entire DVD to download, I'm not sure at what point we will ever get them back to their original order. I am really really bummed.

Fortunately, about 90% of our best photos were taken by my sister and she has a back-up of all her photos. But there are still a lot taken by me and DH over the last 3 years which may or may not be there, along with video clips of the girls spread out over the same time period.

I should've learned this lesson last time we had a hard drive scare, but I didn't. Believe you me, we will be backing everything up from now on.

[ciw]

I'm so sorry. We had a similar thing happen with our videos and ended up losing most of the videos of DS's first year. It's such a disappointment because you feel like you want to hold onto those first months and years forever.

[kayte]

We have a separate hardisk back up (Time Machine)-- but you have reminded me it's time for a DVD backup for the safety deposit box. (Off site storage is the best).

I am so sorry it has happened to you.

Do you print at home or are some of your images on a printing service website?? (Like shutterfly, Walgreens, CVS, etc...) I have a friend who lots her images at home but was able to have disks made from images she had uploaded to print-- she didn't get a complete set of what she had lost but she did get a chunk f the best ones.

[o_mom]

Thank you - this is on my list!

Anyone have suggestions on the best way to back up? I'm thinking portable hard drives or something (a couple to swap between storing here and at an off-site location)? I really need to get this figured out.

[TwinFoxes]

We have a separate hardisk back up (Time Machine)-- but you have reminded me it's time for a DVD backup for the safety deposit box. (Off site storage is the best).

We have Time Machine too. I've been thinking about doing a DVD backup, because I was thinking if someone broke in and stole the computer, they'd take the Time Machine too.

OP, I'm so sorry this happened. That totally sucks. I had a camera stolen that had vacation photos on it. But this is a million times worse because it's your kids. :( Good luck restoring.

[sunshine873]

Oh my Gosh, I am so sorry!

I love my Time Machine...it is worth it's weight in gold & then some. But this post and previous posters have reminded me that I need to back that up too. So, to others that have done backups...how often do you backup your hard drive to DVD?

[JTsMom]

:hug: I'm so sorry! I would be totally heartbroken to lose photos/video. Thank goodness you still have a good chunk of them though!

We do backup, but it's more of an occasional thing. I really want to do a backup a couple of places- on DVD, and on a hosting site. DVD's can get lost or scratched, and that makes me nervous. We have so many photos though, it always seems like a totally overwhelming project.

[kayte]

Oh my Gosh, I am so sorry!

I love my Time Machine...it is worth it's weight in gold & then some. But this post and previous posters have reminded me that I need to back that up too. So, to others that have done backups...how often do you backup your hard drive to DVD?

I heart Time Machine too!!! LOVE IT!!!!

I usually back up the first day of each season--why those days? Just because it's easy for me to remember. But now that we have two camera. the flip and the regular video camera--i think I should do it lore often. SO I am curious what others says concerning how often.

ETA-

After making the DVDs --I verify all the files are there and then it goes in our safety deposit box. (off site, temperature controlled and can't get lost)

[frgsnlzrds]

Oh no! I went through a similar scare a couple months ago, but the fabulous people at the mac store were able to boot up my dying computer one more time to copy the photo files. I'm so sorry you're losing yours. Is there any way to fix them? :hug: At least you can get some copies from your sister.

[ThreeofUs]

Thank you for reminding me. I need to buy an external hard drive or three.

[khm]

Aw, I'm so sorry.

Another easy peasy way to backup, if you have more than one computer is to sync on your home network. I use SyncToy from Microsoft to sync to both my office PC (I like that it's offsite) and to my husband's laptop. It's behind the scenes and I like knowing the pics are in multiple locations.

I do do more formal DVD backups, the syncing is just like insurance. ;)

[Fairy]

Oh! Oh, oh, oh. I am so sorry. :hug:

[AnnieW625]

What a bummer. I have most if not all of my important photos on Facebook, and Snapfish so if something ever happens to our computer I should be okay, however I really should look at getting an external hard drive too.

[Nooknookmom]

Oh man, I'm so sorry. I had a scare last year when I woke up, turned on the PC and my screen was black. Nothing there but a blinking cursor. Nice. We retrieved *most* everything but I have no way of knowing if I lost a few of DD2's baby pics/vid clips. Almost ALL of her pics from birth are on my PC and I kept saying to myself "Must backup!", but it took a near disaster for me to realize how sick I would be if I lost them!

I just went out of town and before I left I backed up all of them!!!

I hope you are able to retrieve most everything. Sometimes the ones that won't come up now, will pop up later. :)

[DietCokeLover]

I hate that happened. I'm so sorry.

Thanks for the reminder though, I really do need to do that, even though most of our photos are also stored on Kodak Gallery.

[neeter]

I'm so sorry you had to go through that! :(

I have had computers and hard drives die on me. I don't trust any of them anymore, and store all my pictures on three external hard drives! One of the HD I leave at work and bring it home once a quarter to do a backup (and bring it back to the office).

We used to have mozy but it didn't seem to sync up alot of stuff; didn't work for us.

[kijip]

I am so sorry, I really feel ill for you. We had a computer fail on us when T was about 2, almost 3. We were SICK with worry till thank god it turned out to be a failed motherboard so we were able to rip out the hard drive and recover everything cleanly. We do back-up (web and an external hard drive), but I need to consider backing up to DVDs for off-site storage too.

[MontrealMum]

I'm so sorry to hear that :hug: I hope with time you're able to restore most of it, but still sorry to hear what a PITA it's going to be.

For backing up, if I'm working a lot and creating lots of files, I do a backup every evening to CD, though it doesn't get taken offsite every evening. I don't generally backup the entire harddrive, just the folders that I would have been creating new files in. If I'm not working lots, I might backup once a week. I should stop saying "I", it's really DH, he's in IT. I also have access to all sorts of other tech gizmos, but generally it's easiest and cheapest to backup to a disk. If I need to do work at school, or travel somewhere with files I use a memory stick for that. Or, if I bring the laptop with me, I do a backup the night before as libraries and archives are terrible for things being stolen.

We have a "master" copy in the vault, and one at the ILs which would enable me to recreate things. If I was taking lots of pictures but not really working on the computer I might just backup the picture folder periodically. If you have sections of your computer that never change, there's no point in backing them up each and every time.

[Andi98989]

We don't have a safe deposit box, but we do have a fireproof safe at home. We keep our important papers in there, and I really should put DVD's of our pictures in there, too.

Right now we have them on our home computers which also back up to a server my DH keeps stored offsite. It's in a controlled environment with its own fire suppression system, etc...

I haven't used this service personally, but I've heard that it works well, and the cost seems pretty reasonable to me. http://www.carbonite.com/

[calv]

I can relate! To this day I morn the lost of our photos. Our PC blue screened and even though it was a few months it was a few months in the first year of our DD. Like I said, to this day I get upset ubout it. We have an external drive and honestly that probably isn't enough. I should back up the 1000's of photo's on CD too!

I'm sorry for your loss.

[writermama]

I haven't used this service personally, but I've heard that it works well, and the cost seems pretty reasonable to me. http://www.carbonite.com/

DH uses carbonite and likes it. I use Amazon's Jungle Disk and also like it. As DH says, if the back-up is not off-site, it's not really backed up.

We also use onsite back-up (time machine and Drobo), but put the important files (photos, videos, etc.) offsite in addition.

[DebbieJ]

I have lost photos in the past, too. It sucks. I lost the only picture of DS breastfeeding. Wah!

I have an external drive and I am also uploading all my photos since DS was born to Shutterfly. I plan to work on photobooks during marathon nursing sessions with this babe on the way. :)

[inmypjs]

This is a great reminder. I will have to check out Time Machine. Right now everything digital is on Shutterfly, and backed up to CDs. I'm so sorry you lost your photos!

[american_mama]

Been there on the hard drive and also been there on the corrupted files/accidental deletion on the camera card (twice). The crashed hard drive took 3 years of photos, no backups, only about 10% saved elsewhere. And I was the cause of it: I was getting thrown out of a meeting for bringing my kids and trying to set them up with a DVD movie, and I slammed my computer shut in anger, and screwed myself in the process. I try not to think about it.

Not done that on the recovery, but I am planning to shell out a lot of money and do it.

And I still don't know how to backup my files.

[kransden]

I just load everything up to Picasa

[nfowife]

We've had quite a few friends lose everything so my DH is a nut about backing up. He does it at the beginning of every month (we go on trips every month too, so we have a lot of pictures). We have 2 external hard drives, and we also back up to DVD's. It's a pain, but not as bad as losing everything.

[KrisM]

We have a stick to back up to. We back up every time we take them off the camera. Every couple months, we backup to DVD and those are at my parents house. DH takes the stick with him to work, so that's out of the house often, too.

OP, I'm so sorry you've lost so much. Have all your friends and family send you what they have. It won't be the same, but I hope that will get you more at least.