One of my favorite things to do at the beginning of a year is to clean and organize. I've spent the last couple of weeks cleaning out closets and drawers, taking stuff I don't need to the D.I. (Goodwill) and stripping wallpaper to kick off a master suite remodel. It has been a lot of work, and isn't quite finished, but it feels good to get rid of the old and start fresh.
It was feeling so good I decided I would continue and organize my seriously over-full and cluttered laptop. I've been getting the disk full error for a while I knew I needed to get photos off the hard drive and onto an external. At the same time I decided I'd make back up copies. I got a process figured out and started working. All was going well, I knew it would take a bit of time, but it was worth it.
Then it happened. If you have a Mac you are familiar with the warning that you shouldn't unplug an external drive before ejecting it. Well, I'm here to tell you to listen to that warning. I accidentally unplugged the drive and somehow corrupted my entire photo library.
The good news is it appears I will be able to recover most of it - thanks to the backups I was in the process of making, but it is going to take weeks to rebuild it and clean it up. Please send up some prayers that I won't lose anything. I know many of you must also have thousands of photos - any tips for storing, organizing and backing them up you want to share with the rest of us? I've been using iPhoto to organize photos just because it is easy, but since I have to rebuild anyway I'm thinking of switching to Adobe Bridge or some-to-be-discovered program. Any suggestions?
Lesson learned, in 2011 I am going to be MUCH better about doing timely backups and will organize my photos so that they will be easier to find.
Thanks to Amanda over at Project Simple Life for turning me onto Zee Avi - a fun new discovery for 2011.
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Monday, January 10, 2011
A Little Organization
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27 comments:
Losing all those photos would be just terrible. I'm glad you'll be able to recover them. I organize in iPhoto, back up on Time Machine, on an additional external hard drive, and also on Backblaze, a web-based back-up system. It's pretty slow, but it's cheap. I have one huge external hard drive that is partioned into two parts, one for Time Machine and one for photos. I need to do a big clean-up on my computer as well! I have folder upon folder of documents and photos that needs to be cleaned out.
oh...scary to think you might lose some photos... I have three externals I back up to. Two here and one off site in a safe.
I just started Saturday removing 2010 photos from my laptop. They're taking up a lot of space.
Even though I back them up three times I still cringe when deleting them off my laptop...scary.
Good luck.
Oh, you poor dear! I've often wondered if that warning really is just overkill protection...is it awful to say that I'm happy you've taught me otherwise? I mean...not happy that your precious photos were erased, but happy to be informed that I should be more careful!
My guy and I were just talking about my need to transfer all my photos over to an external, and clean off my desktop. Nerdy resolution for the new year: Be more purposeful and careful with my technology.
One of my most favorite things to do it take things to the DI. I feel like old cluttery things are so weighing and getting that stuff out of here is so light and freeing. Also I would absolutely DIE if I lost my pictures. I think about that all the time and I have probably about half on a external hard drive, but I really need to put the rest on there. I am so glad you are going to be able to recover them!!
I just cleaned out my closet on Saturday and have a few bags for DI - I love it! I am trying this year, to do a computer back up - every fast Sunday! I put my pictures on my external hard drive, and then also a DVD. I have been making a second DVD so that I can send it with Brad to work, so that if anything happened here - we would still have our stuff! Good luck recovering everything!
I am so sorry, that is no fun! I use lightroom for organizing and it seems to be going well, I don't know how to use everything yet though :)
Oh no! My worst nightmare so I am praying you recover all your photos. I am a MAC girl so I know I've made this mistake before. Good luck!
oh no...that is the worst feeling.. I choose to think positive for you on this one/..fingers crossed
jeepers, I hope you can save everything. I was just the other day making a mental note to do a back-up. I use a flash drive and DVDs. I'm terrible at getting around to doing that...I get by on a prayer. this is fair warning, I know it.
Jamie your encouragement and support means a whole lot. Just when I'm discouraged with what I'm creating, you come along and lift me up. Thanks a million.
What a beautiful voice she has, really beautiful.
I leave all the technical back up stuff to Anders to do, and so no advice but glad you have recovered most of it and hope you get the rest too. Anders did say he found a great on-line programme when some of his photos on his camera card got corrupted, it was free for photography stuff and you pay for it if it is documents etc, if it is of interest I will ask Anders about it more.
oh no! i hope you don't lose anything. good luck with the recovery. i just back all my photos up to an external hard drive every month or so. ok, not every month, but i mean to do it every month...
I also back up to harddrive but so far I'm too scared to delete from my laptop. I also need to come up with a better solution, and soon too because I think my harddrive is almost at capacity. Good luck getting everything back up and running again!
Oh that is awful! And I haven't been listening to that warning, oops!! So I just got a Mac...how do you store you photos on it? Is storing them in iPhoto and the picture folder necessary? Where do you usually download them to from your camera?
love,
confused in switzerland
I can't even imagine how scary that was. Wow. So, so glad you can recover them!
it's when things like this happen that you appreciate the added-value of blogging - online back-ups of our images. i hope you recover all your work and highly, highly recommend adobe lightroom. it's kind of like iphoto, but more professional and about $300 -
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/
there's a blog all about it here - http://lightroomkillertips.com/
let me know if you have any questions and i'll try to answer them.
I had time capsule and then we had a thunder storm/power cut and time capsule didn't work any more but luckily my computer was ok. I keep meaning to put everything on dvd, I have lightroom it is fantastic.
I have a Mac, and have done the same Jamie, not once, but twice! Second time I was able to recover. First time, not so lucky!
I've done the same thing here for the past few weeks (cleaning up clutter). Feels so good! Now if I can just keep it that way!
Scary stuff. Sounds like you'll be able to recover everything hopefully.
I still haven't got over a terrible experience a few years ago when my external drive crashed and died due to a manufacturers fault. Nothing could be recovered and I lost every digital photo that I'd ever shot :(
oh no! i hope you don't lose anything! i will need to back up stuff! i love your video. i listen to Kina Grannis who also plays and sings awesome! Check her out if you have time =)
You know, I have a Mac too...and I think the trick is to make sure that the program that you were using to open the files on the external drive - i.e., Preview for photos - is closed. That always solves the problem on my Mac...
You can back up your whole hard drive on external hard drives (that's what the boy does for me).
Oh no! I've been there, it's not fun! I just save everything on an external and its orgianl SD or USB, I never delete off my SD's just buy new ones...but doing two externals is good idea, on comment said she stored on off site, this a good idea, I might start doing that too, just incase we get a fire or something...
eek! good luck!! i still use iPhoto. don't have any other suggestions for you.
Oh Jaime,
So sorry to hear about your computer problems ugh the same thing has happened to me! Ugh I had to get a recover disc to get all my photos back - phew! So scary right? Girlfriend... now you've got me thinking I need to set some time aside to do the same - clean up! Thanks for the motivation ♥
I'm so sorry this happened to you! I have always prayed that I will not lose all my pictures and music from my computer. My husband always tells me I need to get an external hard drive and I never listen. I hope it doesn't take something like what happened to you to get me to wake up and just get one from Best Buy.
Sorry that it's such major sucksville right now! Hope everything is operational soon!
P.S. Am blushing over the link love! Zee Avi is marvelous, right?
I keep thinking that I need to back up a bunch of the things on my hard drive, too. This is a good reminder why I need to get on that!
Man that stinks! Hope you can save all your photos! My Mac was stolen in 2006 and I lost a whole year of my photos. So no pics of my second son for his first year:( If it's any consolation, you've reminded us all that we need to back up our systems regularly. Something I have not been doing!
Thanks for your song pics, as always!
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