Backups Backups Backups!!!

[KeithD]

:doh How many times do we have to tell folk. It takes a few minutes to setup Second Copy (http://download.cnet.com/Second-Copy/3000-2242_4-10006600.html) and then it runs automatically in the background.

Leave a pen drive (http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-53481-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=9&pub=5574685051&toolid=10001&campid=5335966146&customid=pendrive&icep_uq=pen+drive+8gb&icep_sellerId=&icep_ex_kw=&icep_sortBy=12&icep_catId=&icep_minPrice=&icep_maxPrice=&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=229508&kwid=902099&mtid=824&kw=lg) in the usb port at the back, you can get 8GB for about £10 on Ebay (http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-53481-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=9&pub=5574685051&toolid=10001&campid=5335966146&customid=pendrive&icep_uq=pen+drive+8gb&icep_sellerId=&icep_ex_kw=&icep_sortBy=12&icep_catId=&icep_minPrice=&icep_maxPrice=&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=229508&kwid=902099&mtid=824&kw=lg), or a 160GB external hard drive for £30.

The last few weeks I have had to deal with a number of computer problems for other people and none keep backups. If you want to lose all your photo's, history, etc, then fine :rolleyes:

[Mrs Daddy]

Was it for me Boss :Erm:

[KeithD]

Was it for me Boss :Erm:
Over 90% of folk don't make backups and then moan wwhen they lose data! :xxgrinning--00xx3:

[Mrs Daddy]

Over 90% of folk don't make backups and then moan wwhen they lose data! :xxgrinning--00xx3:

Not experience that and hope never will:doh:NoNo::NoNo:

[KeithD]

Not experience that and hope never will:doh:NoNo::NoNo:
All hard drives will fail at some point. They only designed to last 5 years but can fail in less than a year.

[Mrs Daddy]

The problem Boss is us majority of girls are not a computer geek like you are:D:D:D we simply rely heavily on technician and Am lucky myself I have got a step son in law who do all pc problems for me:)

[ukgangster]

Also worth considering is an increasing number of online storage websites, for example skydrive from Microsoft or BTDigital Vault. I use an email service that includes file storage, so it has the best of both worlds. The one bonus of online storage is that your files are accessible wherever theres an internet connection. Only downside is the most have a limit of a few GB's (skydrive seems to be the exception - 25Gb), but for a small monthly fee, that can be increased. Some of these services have the facility to automatically upload and update your files on a regular basis.

I never store files on my laptop (apart from music) - they go on a USB drive, then uploaded to online storage once a week.

[LEAHnew]

:xxgrinning--00xx3:We'll take note of that...thanks for reminding Dad ooopps Boss:D:Rasp::Cuckoo::xxgrinning--00xx3:

[KeithD]

:xxgrinning--00xx3:We'll take note of that...thanks for reminding Dad ooopps Boss:D:Rasp::Cuckoo::xxgrinning--00xx3:
Not too old to be spanked :action-smiley-081: :rolleyes:

[tiN]

:ARsurrender::ARsurrender::ARsurrender:

Guilty as charged, i will do that as soon as my computer work again :D:D:D

Thanks Boss :D

[IainBusby]

The problem Boss is us majority of girls are not a computer geek like you are:D:D:D we simply rely heavily on technician and Am lucky myself I have got a step son in law who do all pc problems for me:)

A technician can't really help you if, as Keith says, your hard disk has died, you've lost all of your photos, movie clips, mp3's etc and you haven't made a backup.

[JimOttley]

A technician can't really help you if, as Keith says, your hard disk has died, you've lost all of your photos, movie clips, mp3's etc and you haven't made a backup.

Depends how it died Iain, a dead IDE or SATA interface on the drive can be pretty fatal at least it's not easy to fix, definitely a return to a specialist for a new board assuming the specific board is still available.

On a drive that has bad sectors or a drive that is nearing general physical failure (bad bearing maybe) it will still usually be possible to recover large amounts of your data if you act quickly.

Logical errors like a damaged partition table, damaged MFT's or corrupt boot loader are not usually fatal there are lots of good recovery programs that will find lost partitions, lost files, etc.

My personal favourite is Winhex, if it can be recovered Winhex will get it back but it is not a user friendly program, best left to a specialist (I am not offering anyone any help here, life is too short to specialise in disk recovery folks :) )

Winhex is quite cheap but as I said it's hard to use and you will usually need a new disk as big as the one you are trying to recover, during recovery never write to the disk you are trying to recover :)

Keith is absolutely right, always backup, disk space is cheap these days and online space is getting cheaper every few months.



Jim

Jim

[joebloggs]

i've worked at a couple of small companies that didn't regularly back up their data :doh, and soon or later they will wished they had, at one company they lost many months worth of their accounts, so a few of them spent weeks going thru delivery notes and invoices to find who owed them money :NoNo:. most companies would never survive this.

programs can be easily replaced, data like your accounts, pictures,chat logs cannot be :doh so do regular back ups :xxgrinning--00xx3:


i think you said you was a s/w developer jim, what languages do you program in ?

[JimOttley]

i think you said you was a s/w developer jim, what languages do you program in ?

Loads Joe :)

Worked with Clipper and C in the 80's, C++ occasionally but only when I really have to, mostly for embedded stuff in handheld devices like barcode readers or when I have to write special interfaces.

Visual Basic from version 2 onwards, god I hate that language :)

Something called Visual Objects, nice language but it went nowhere.

Object Pascal i.e. Delphi was my preferred development tool for long time, still supporting a large Delphi code base these days and probably will be for a good long time to come.

Last few years I made the switch to C# and the .NET framework, C# is a very nice language it has all the elegance and expressivness of Delphi's Object Pascal but it's modern, really like it these days.

Now it's often more about knowing technologies than about languages, with .NET you can code in the dialect that you feel comfortable in be it VB, Pascal or C/C++/C# style they all compile down to the same intermediate language.

No these days it's more about technologies, platforms and design patterns :) things like WPF, Silverlight, WCF, MVC/MVP (Model View Controller/Presenter patterns) .

Window Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Windows Communications Foundation (WCF) are the main things I'm working with now.

I do some web development too but it's not really what I enjoy, I much prefer working on Line of Business apps.

On the data side mostly SQL Server these days but I also worked a lot with Oracle and we still use the Btrieve database system now known as Pervasive SQL.

It's all great fun and I do enjoy learning new stuff but sometimes I wish it would all stop changing even just for a little while :)


Jim

[joebloggs]

i see things have moved on slightly since the days I learnt cobol :doh

and i couldn't get my head around object programming, harder when you learnt structured programming techniques like jsp. - thou probably good for visual basic :D

as for sql, :doh i still cant understand the normal forms of normalization, sql theory most boring subject known to mankind :cwm24:

as for the rest, you've lost me :doh

assembly language was my fave, fast and pure, just you and the processor :xxgrinning--00xx3:, the stuff you could do in a few bytes :D

wish i stuck at it, how i miss the days of 3.5k of ram to use :rolleyes:

thou i always wanted to learn and use C# :rolleyes:

[KeithD]

It is irrelevant what language is used these days, if it runs through .NET they are all basically the same now.

I used to use Prolog in the 80's, and machine code on CPM systems :cwm24: That's going back a bit!

[JimOttley]

i see things have moved on slightly since the days I learnt cobol :doh

and i couldn't get my head around object programming, harder when you learnt structured programming techniques like jsp. - thou probably good for visual basic :D

as for sql, :doh i still cant understand the normal forms of normalization, sql theory most boring subject known to mankind :cwm24:

as for the rest, you've lost me :doh

assembly language was my fave, fast and pure, just you and the processor :xxgrinning--00xx3:, the stuff you could do in a few bytes :D

wish i stuck at it, how i miss the days of 3.5k of ram to use :rolleyes:

thou i always wanted to learn and use C# :rolleyes:

My colleagues still use a dialect of Cobol a lot of my stuff is built around their core Cobol ERP system, I added Document Management, Radio Frequency Barcode scanners etc.

I've never really coded in assembler although oddly enough I dug out one of my books on assembly language last night :)

As you say just you and the processor but you have to know the processor intimately :)

As for SQL, I bet you worked with normalised data all the time mate ;) but I know what you mean.

WPF = scale independant vector graphics user interface for line of business apps, you get to use the graphics processor at something more than 0.1% of it's capability.

WCF = Microsoft's latest attempt to implement a multi-tier architecture it basically provides yet another way of doing remote procedure calls. This time over the web.

WPF + WCF = Presentation separated from business logic separated from database.

Until recently VB was a pseudo object language that was partly why I hated it , the other reason was it was just to easy to shoot yourself in the foot using VB :)

Object orientation is just good practice not that different from structured techniques, once you get your head round the idea of "object instances" i.e. discrete block of data with code that acts on that block of data, it all gets pretty simple. Lots of old Cobol coders used to use techniques that were as close as you could get to object programming in a procedural language it was natural to them, they were really not that far removed from the modern programming world.

Amazing when you think back, whole operating systems running in a few kilobytes in the old days :)

Also amazing is the fact that almost all the new stuff that is coming out now is a rehash of stuff that was done long long ago on a faraway mainframe, very little is really ground breaking in modern computing :)


Jim

[JimOttley]

It is irrelevant what language is used these days, if it runs through .NET they are all basically the same now.


Exactly!

[KeithD]

Exactly!
Microsoft's ploy to blend all the programming languages, and if you ask me that's a good thing, look at the mess of the Internet. Languages every bloody where :doh. You have to know about 5 now just to do a decent but basic web page. :Cuckoo: Thank God for PHP :xxgrinning--00xx3:

[JimOttley]

Microsoft's ploy to blend all the programming languages, and if you ask me that's a good thing, look at the mess of the Internet. Languages every bloody where :doh. You have to know about 5 now just to do a decent but basic web page. :Cuckoo: Thank God for PHP :xxgrinning--00xx3:

Yes it is a good thing, there are some types of problems that are better expressed in one particular language rather than another but they all work against the .NET framework these days and the framework is so huge that it's hard to write something that another programmer could not easily read and understand.

Your point about the web is one of the main reasons I hate web development these days :) html, javascript, css, xmlhttp, flash and that's only the client side rendering then you need your sever side so it's ASP, ASP.NET, JSP, PHP, XML and XSL server side as well.

It just never ends :(

HTML 5 looks interesting if it ever gets full cross browser support but I think I may stick to ASP.NET and maybe learn a bit more Silverlight that way at least I get to stick with C# most of the time :)


Jim

[Florge]

well, i'm OC when it comes to soft copies... so i back-up my files ALL the time.. even send it to my emails.. hehehe...

[joebloggs]

I used to use Prolog in the 80's, and machine code on CPM systems :cwm24: That's going back a bit!

I've still got a rair black box, cpm puter from about 1980, i've not turned it on since about 1981 - its got a 5mb hdd :xxgrinning--00xx3:

The boards on this model would sometimes come free from the mother board during transit. The engineer would arrive from Rair, wait for the client to leave the room, and then simply drop the computer from about two inches off the desk to re-install the system.

http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/computer.asp?c=454

yes 8085 processor.



I've never really coded in assembler although oddly enough I dug out one of my books on assembly language last night :)

As you say just you and the processor but you have to know the processor intimately :)

As for SQL, I bet you worked with normalised data all the time mate ;) but I know what you mean.



i knew and still know the 6502 and z80 instruction set more intimately than the misses and thats more than 25yrs ago :doh

:icon_lol:

sql theory is the only thing i took twice and gave up twice on :doh, some times you need to know when to quit :icon_lol:

[IainBusby]

Depends how it died Iain, a dead IDE or SATA interface on the drive can be pretty fatal at least it's not easy to fix, definitely a return to a specialist for a new board assuming the specific board is still available.


I have managed to recover a few myself by swapping the board from an identical disk. Where I work we tend to stock the same particular model and size of disk for quite a while and when we upgrade, we keep all the old disks just in case we need to recover an identical one.

We deal with academics, professors etc and for all their cleverness, they quite often complete idiots when it comes to computers. We always advise them to make regular backups of all important data and they all have plenty of space on our data servers which are backed up to tape daily, but our advice seems to fall on deaf ears most of the time.

Iain.

[JimOttley]

We deal with academics, professors etc and for all their cleverness, they quite often complete idiots when it comes to computers. We always advise them to make regular backups of all important data and they all have plenty of space on our data servers which are backed up to tape daily, but our advice seems to fall on deaf ears most of the time.

Iain.

As a coder I put too much effort into writing code to ever take the chance of losing it I've occasionally lost a couple of hours work but never lost anything serious.

These days I am using Microsoft's Live Mesh to sync my code and anything else that is really important to me.

Live mesh is impressive it's still a beta but it's one of a whole slew of products that show that Microsoft has woken up again and is starting to get things right for once.

https://www.mesh.com/welcome/default.aspx


Jim

[somebody]

As a coder I put too much effort into writing code to ever take the chance of losing it I've occasionally lost a couple of hours work but never lost anything serious.

These days I am using Microsoft's Live Mesh to sync my code and anything else that is really important to me.

Live mesh is impressive it's still a beta but it's one of a whole slew of products that show that Microsoft has woken up again and is starting to get things right for once.

https://www.mesh.com/welcome/default.aspx


Jim
Word MS are waking up theres another product I was shown a while back (ok a few weeks ago but time flies) which once i recall what it is i will mention on here because at the time i thought not for us but be handy possibly for peeps on fil uk.

Had my fair share of grief with applications recently:Brick::Brick: one in particular where the databases and servers are in the US. Application designed and mainly created in Japan along with third parties doing outsource worked in other places while the core market at the moment is the UK then Europe and onwards. Headaches galore but hey I got to do a bit of flying Sitting on a plane no phone, no emails just abook or a kip while being paid is the life:xxgrinning--00xx3:

The various Programing teams live in a dream world it seems:D


Back to back ups.

HDD's in my experience have more issues if you dont shut sdown correctly of course back up but always shutdown any hardware based device.

They frustrate me now days as my laptops are all solid state so almost forget often when suddenly confronted by a mechnical hdd device.

[joebloggs]

:doh well you've probably not noticed, i've not been on here for a few days :D

nope i haven't got a life yet or something better to do, like feed the dog :D


xp on my pc got really :censored:, first time in nearly 2 yrs :doh


when i loggoed in, it logged straight out :cwm24:, tired many things, created a dummy wgaupdater, scanned it for viruses, safe mode, nothing would work :doh

so i had to in the end replace the s/w hive with an older one :NoNo:

could login, most stuff appeared to work ok, messenger and azuerus , but firefox or IE wsouldn't, tired loads of fixes etc, service packs, etc. could not get it to work.

so :censored:, wiped all of windows off it using mini windows xp, left me data on and reinstalled xp, just finished putting virus scanner/firewall etc back on :xxgrinning--00xx3:

i've got 70gb extra free now :Hellooo:, 70gb worth of kids games which have been installed over 2yrs are gone :xxgrinning--00xx3:

works great now :xxgrinning--00xx3::xxgrinning--00xx3::xxgrinning--00xx3

lost nothing but the time it took to re-install xp and the utils.

my misses had more than 6gb of photos on it :doh

[JimOttley]

:doh well you've probably not noticed, i've not been on here for a few days :D

nope i haven't got a life yet or something better to do, like feed the dog :D


xp on my pc got really :censored:, first time in nearly 2 yrs :doh


when i loggoed in, it logged straight out :cwm24:, tired many things, created a dummy wgaupdater, scanned it for viruses, safe mode, nothing would work :doh

so i had to in the end replace the s/w hive with an older one :NoNo:

could login, most stuff appeared to work ok, messenger and azuerus , but firefox or IE wsouldn't, tired loads of fixes etc, service packs, etc. could not get it to work.

so :censored:, wiped all of windows off it using mini windows xp, left me data on and reinstalled xp, just finished putting virus scanner/firewall etc back on :xxgrinning--00xx3:

i've got 70gb extra free now :Hellooo:, 70gb worth of kids games which have been installed over 2yrs are gone :xxgrinning--00xx3:

works great now :xxgrinning--00xx3::xxgrinning--00xx3::xxgrinning--00xx3

lost nothing but the time it took to re-install xp and the utils.

my misses had more than 6gb of photos on it :doh

Glad you got it back Joe, I hate the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever I've had a drive failure or corrupted OS.

I've been lucky, I've never really lost anything I have had several major PC failures over the years though and it's the time it eats up trying to get a working system cobbled back together that is the real hassle.

Even setting up a new laptop (my work got me a new one a couple of weeks back) takes me about 6 or 7 hours to get to the point where I have a working Development system.

Just in the process of moving about half a terabyte of data around to make room to consolidate and to backup my photo libraries which come to around 300GB at the moment, trying to avoid having to buy another disk just now. :)


Jim

[joebloggs]

Glad you got it back Joe, I hate the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever I've had a drive failure or corrupted OS.

I've been lucky, I've never really lost anything I have had several major PC failures over the years though and it's the time it eats up trying to get a working system cobbled back together that is the real hassle.

Even setting up a new laptop (my work got me a new one a couple of weeks back) takes me about 6 or 7 hours to get to the point where I have a working Development system.

Just in the process of moving about half a terabyte of data around to make room to consolidate and to backup my photo libraries which come to around 300GB at the moment, trying to avoid having to buy another disk just now. :)


Jim

oh i've burn't all the photos and cam recordings onto dvds for last few years, thou i'm thinking of getting about a 500gb hdd to copy them all onto, as i've dug out some old data cds from maybe 7yrs ago, the cd coating on the top have faded a bit,even thou they been in a box in the dark :rolleyes:, and most of my pc's couldn't read them any more, they are also fairly brittle, 75yr life span :action-smiley-081:
so don't count on being able to read your cds/dvd's in a few years :doh

the only thing i lost were a few docs i didnt really need, i deleted them thinking i had backed them up :doh

:icon_lol:

[JimOttley]

oh i've burn't all the photos and cam recordings onto dvds for last few years, thou i'm thinking of getting about a 500gb hdd to copy them all onto, as i've dug out some old data cds from maybe 7yrs ago, the cd coating on the top have faded a bit,even thou they been in a box in the dark :rolleyes:, and most of my pc's couldn't read them any more, they are also fairly brittle, 75yr life span :action-smiley-081:
so don't count on being able to read your cds/dvd's in a few years :doh

the only thing i lost were a few docs i didnt really need, i deleted them thinking i had backed them up :doh

:icon_lol:

Yeah agreed writeable CD/DVD media is not a long term backup solution, I've had this discussion elsewhere as well. Sadly hard drives have limited life too, the only safe backup method is to keep your data on the move and to have it in multiple locations.

Photos and Video are a specific problem though because the sheer amount of data can be so large. If you only have a few Gig's worth of pictures then online storage can be a good idea but always keep a local backup as well.

Compact Flash IS a long term storage medium for photos (100 year plus, better than Kodachrome :) ) if it is protected from heat, magnetism and radiation.

For photos I try to treat Compact flash as film i.e. once I've used a flash card I buy another one, they are so cheap these days that the per image cost is lower than it was in film/processing days.

Treat your flash memory as your negatives or slides and you will not go wrong you still need hard disk though, because you should always have a copy.

Reasons for Flash drives failing are usually logical rather than physical electrical problems and you can always recover something when it's a logical error. The other reason for failure is excessive use where individual memory addresses on the card get re-written many thousands of times so write once read many is a good approach for them :)

Ana did a full wash cycle on a 2GB lexar card about 3 years ago :icon_lol: and it still works, I don't trust it but it does still work :)

No luck on the lost documents, I really hate losing things like that even if the content is not so important.



Jim

[somebody]

oh i've burn't all the photos and cam recordings onto dvds for last few years, thou i'm thinking of getting about a 500gb hdd to copy them all onto, as i've dug out some old data cds from maybe 7yrs ago, the cd coating on the top have faded a bit,even thou they been in a box in the dark :rolleyes:, and most of my pc's couldn't read them any more, they are also fairly brittle, 75yr life span :action-smiley-081:
so don't count on being able to read your cds/dvd's in a few years :doh

the only thing i lost were a few docs i didnt really need, i deleted them thinking i had backed them up :doh

:icon_lol:

Glad you sorted it as you say sometimes a blessing as you reduce the clutter. I have so many files i keep just in case..

Im sure you could get some well made and cared for disks to 75 years in a workable state. Problem would thne be finding a device to read them.

As mentioned before any one got a bbc b laser disk to read the doomsday disks made back in the 80's:Erm:


If you went back 75 years the various media formats that have been and gone would be huge.

Dat, was it philips digital casste, mini disk, analogue cassette, 8 track, wax cylinder, sinclair microdrive, comdore ealy device disk drives. very laser disks, betamax, VHS, s vhs, zip drives, floppy disk all formats including ones launched only ten years ago like the 120mb drive . Could back up to a cloud I can think of ones which offer 100gb's per person. but companies will come and go over 75 years. Most of these formats the average household would have problems laying their hands on im guessing. Even old HDD formats as we move forward will be complicated for the person in the street to read possibly as OS's develop and change even if they use ibm pc compatiables or apples pass and present.

Best method for many things seems to be a hard copy if photos, diagrams or written word. Books or photos albums might be the best bet.

[KeithD]

Use the free storage sites, you get 5GB on one of them, and store you pics around different suppliers.

Also get hard copies of your main photos, they only cost a few pence at Bonusprint, just in case we get hit with a nuke or solar flare :cwm24:

[joebloggs]

Also get hard copies of your main photos, they only cost a few pence at Bonusprint, just in case we get hit with a nuke or solar flare :cwm24:

yes i could make a nuclear shelter out of all the pics my misses has taken if i printed them all out :rolleyes:, also i've got 100s of computer mag from late 70s - early 80's i could use :D

i dont trust dat tape or any kinda tapes, i think i'll buy a 200gb hdd and keep a copy on dvds.

and of course print them out at work for nowt :rolleyes:

oh couldn't use online, i dont want peeps looking at my pics :action-smiley-081:

:yikes:

[JimOttley]

Dat, was it philips digital casste, mini disk, analogue cassette, 8 track, wax cylinder, sinclair microdrive, comdore ealy device disk drives. very laser disks, betamax, VHS, s vhs, zip drives, floppy disk all formats including ones launched only ten years ago like the 120mb drive . Could back up to a cloud I can think of ones which offer 100gb's per person. but companies will come and go over 75 years. Most of these formats the average household would have problems laying their hands on im guessing. Even old HDD formats as we move forward will be complicated for the person in the street to read possibly as OS's develop and change even if they use ibm pc compatiables or apples pass and present.

Best method for many things seems to be a hard copy if photos, diagrams or written word. Books or photos albums might be the best bet.

Still have a ZIP drive and a 5 1/4" floppy several different tape formats :) I doubt I will ever plug one in again at least not before I'm 65 :)

Cloud backup :Erm: tried Humyo 100GB and hated it, the non web sync software was desperately poor, I have Diino 100GB just now and its Java based uploader is pretty good.

Problem with cloud backup just now is bandwidth, it took me a couple of weeks to even use 30GB.

Diino have a free unlimited backup policy :icon_lol: but I've never had a single backup complete without error :icon_lol: I'm only trying to backup about 8 GB but that is a two or three day operation. Even if you have fairly good upstream bandwidth it's just not enough to be usable.

As a photographer I still have all my negatives and slides going back 35 years indeed I have my dads negatives and slides gong back a further 30 years :) That is effectively hard copy and is why I was making the argument for Compact Flash as hard copy, it's just much more robust than any other form of storage I can think of.

Even B&W or colour negatives are only good for 25 years if processed well and a lot are not processed all that well, but at least they only degrade over time you can still print something from them 50 years later.

In modern digital photography RAW formats are digital negatives and I would really hate to lose mine. Post Processing is the same as going into the darkroom in the old days you can always go back and try again to get the best output possible.

I'm a bit anal when it comes to the subject of backing up my pictures as I guess you can tell :)

I do share Joe's concerns about online file storage and certainly I have far too many photos to ever consider it as the only option, I use Flickr for the majority of my best shots but Flick will not accept RAW format and over time it compresses your older jpeg images without telling you, I've got comparisons between original uploads and what I am now able to download and I have proved to myself that they are compressing older stuff to save space :(

As you say companies can come and go, can you imagine if one of these storage companies went bust but gave sufficient notice for people to download all their stuff :yikes: their servers would melt :icon_lol:


Jim

[JimOttley]

Use the free storage sites, you get 5GB on one of them, and store you pics around different suppliers.

Also get hard copies of your main photos, they only cost a few pence at Bonusprint, just in case we get hit with a nuke or solar flare :cwm24:

I agree but then again the nuke will probably fry your photies anyway ;)

Solar flare is a worry, we need to start building houses as Faraday cages as soon as we can :bangingfisthardontableicon: :icon_lol: (I'm half serious Keith I'm not being sarcastic)


Jim

[joebloggs]

your negatives, you could scan them using a tma adaptor
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/fastFaqLiteDocument?lc=en&cc=gb&dlc=en&docname=bps05614

part of my job is testing scanners, sold a couple of ex corp high end business scanners for nearly £1k each in the last few wks :xxgrinning--00xx3:

thats brings me on nicely to scanning all your important docs, passports, certs and visas to pdf files, anything important now i make a scan of it to file and to print on a color laser. some of the copies are nearly as good as the orginals :D

[JimOttley]

your negatives, you could scan them using a tma adaptor
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/fastFaqLiteDocument?lc=en&cc=gb&dlc=en&docname=bps05614

part of my job is testing scanners, sold a couple of ex corp high end business scanners for nearly £1k each in the last few wks :xxgrinning--00xx3:

thats brings me on nicely to scanning all your important docs, passports, certs and visas to pdf files, anything important now i make a scan of it to file and to print on a color laser. some of the copies are nearly as good as the orginals :D

Agreed Joe, I could but I tried already and the time involved is enormous, I have thousands and they range from half plate through 620, 120, 135, 127, 126 formats.

There are always dynamic range issues when scanning photos or negs, you often lose a lot of the subtlety of the original.

I find these days that the best and fastest way to copy documents (and photos) is to use a digital reprographic setup i.e. a good digital camera on a stand with lights and a lens that performs reasonably at close range. But even then I don't have the time I would like to do it all, these are projects for old age and my brother in law has volunteered :) at least my sister volunteered him :D


Jim

[fred]

:dohI just found this thread...A bit too late..!!



I never got round to buying the external hard drive Ive been promising myself for so long but forgot about and never backed up my stuff!!
Today I got the black screen of death (as my son described it) at start up.. we tried about ten times but always the black screen..
Ive not had to do this for years but had to get out the recovery disks..(now 4 DVD`s)
I chose the option to reinstall and save data option on my acer recovery management CD 1 disk..
Before,on my old PC this always worked and my stuff was never lost..
This time my old data has gone seriously missing..
What went wrong with the save data mode? Or is it all still hiding somewhere on my PC ? Any ideas where it may be? or am I grasping at straws..:icon_lol:
Just a thought.. I only used 2 of the 4 DVD`s to get back my new desktop... I wonder what is on the other 2??:icon_lol:

:Help1:

[sars_notd_virus]

:dohI just found this thread...A bit too late..!!




Ive not had to do this for years but had to get out the recovery disks..(now 4 DVD`s)

What went wrong with the save data mode? Or is it all still hiding somewhere on my PC ? Any ideas where it may be? or am I grasping at straws..:icon_lol:



I'm sure you can still recover some of your files .... we have some old hard drives and it was completely wiped out and formatted but my husband can still managed to recover some of the important files in it...in windows u can see that theres nothing in there but once you use the special program from Linux , some of your files will be recovered...amazing :xxgrinning--00xx3:

[fred]

I'm sure you can still recover some of your files .... we have some old hard drives and it was completely wiped out and formatted but my husband can still managed to recover some of the important files in it...in windows u can see that theres nothing in there but once you use the special program from Linux , some of your files will be recovered...amazing :xxgrinning--00xx3:


Thanks Sars..
As it happens my son found all the files that were backed up by Acer recovery management.. :xxgrinning--00xx3:
Alls well that ends well.

[sars_notd_virus]

Thanks Sars..
As it happens my son found all the files that were backed up by Acer recovery management.. :xxgrinning--00xx3:
Alls well that ends well.

Thats cool fred :xxgrinning--00xx3:
what can we do without our techno and reliable children, they seems to know a lot these days

[les_taxi]

But as we have always said make a separate backup on usb flash drive and cd/dvds too of your precious pics and docs then no matter if your hard drive is un-recoverable you will be fine:xxgrinning--00xx3:

[stevewool]

all my pictures get backed up onto a external harddrive

[sars_notd_virus]

external harddrive

very useful info steve,...i got 2terabyte external hard drive to store all my pix and important files too :xxgrinning--00xx3:

[les_taxi]

all my pictures get backed up onto a external harddrive

Yes me too it's the best solution as you can store lots:xxgrinning--00xx3: