Backing up pictures from HD

Pydpiper

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I have hundreds and hundreds of photos that I do not want to lose, I just don't know how to back them up to CD.
I use Windows XP, and am in need of help.
What is the best way while not consuming hundreds of CD's?
 

Starlight

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Buy another hard drive. Small ones are cheap. Put it in your comp and copy files to it. Take it back out then, so it isn't succeptible to lightning, etc. Put it back in every so often to copy again, or when you put a large batch of pictures on the main drive.
 

jtice

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You could use an external USB hard drive for that.
I would not recommend taking a IDE drive in and out of the computer often like that.

For CDs,
you can use any burning program,
But I found that actually making BACKUPS, sucks.
I just burn the image files straight to disc.
But, I use DVDs also,
I have well over 16,000 photos, that I backup on two DVDs so far.
DVD drives are only about $70 to $90 now,
and the blank DVDs are very cheap now also.
I have never seen an easier, better way to back things up.

You dont have to really worry about DVD shelf life for this,
since a new DVD or set of DVDs will be made every so often.
 

Lynx_Arc

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Get a DVD burner and use dvdrom or rw media. I have a program called total commander (shareware) but there are others also the allow you to synchronize files between media if you are editing/updating pictures and adding more in the same locations.
 

Pydpiper

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I have these photos on my laptop, so adding an extra hard drive would be costly..
A DVD burner? Is there one available via USB? My internal burner may be DVD, I don't know..
 

Lynx_Arc

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If you have a desktop computer it may be cheaper to network them together and use a burner on it than get one for yourlaptop
 

Pydpiper

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My latop does have a burner, yes..
I do not understand networking, but it would work well because I have pictures on both machines.. I will have to learn about that stuff.
 

watt4

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if you are running windows XP, try this:

using explorer, drag and drop some files onto the drive letter icon (for the cd drive).

see if the system gives you a notice that you have files ready to write to the cd.

if it does, pop in a blank cd and try it
 

eluminator

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You may be able to get many hundreds of pictures on a CD. A CD holds around 700 MB. My picture files (jpg) are all less than 1.5 MB each.

XP has built in software for burning CD's. I don't know much about it though, because I use Nero. Nero is good but it's gotten pretty expensive. I guess around $75.

You should be able to "drag and drop" the picture folders to the CD drive. I use two Windows Explorer programs when I drag and drop. I have each Explorer window small enough so I can see both at once. Have one Explorer looking at the destination (like the CD drive) and the other looking at the source folders. Select the folders or pictures you want, and then drag. I use the right mouse button for dragging because when I release the button, I get an in-context menu. (move, copy, or cancel).

Somebody ought to offer a mini course in file and folder selection and dragging, because many people don't know all the handy features that are available.

After I burn valuable files to CD, I always copy them back to a temporary folder. This tells me if any of the files on CD are unreadable.

I always use re-writable CDs (CD-RW). That way I don't have to worry about making "coasters", I.E. bad CDs.

NewEgg.com has been selling DVD burners for $55, but there's no need to go this route if you can get all your pictures on a few CDs. Blank CDs are cheap. I get Ridata (Ritek) blank CDs from NewEgg.

If you just have two computers you want to network, you can simply connect them directly with a "crossover" ethernet cable. Otherwise you will want to get a hub and some "straight through" ethernet cables.
 

eluminator

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It seems when you drag files to a CD drive with XP, they are shown under the category "Files Ready to Be Written to the CD". Then you can right click the drive and click "Write these files to CD".

I don't know how you tell the total size of the files that are to be written. Maybe XP will warn you if you put too many there, or maybe it will burn them to multiple CDs, but I wouldn't bet my life on it.

With Nero, you get a "progress bar" that indicates the size in MB that you are about to burn. There is a red line on the "progress bar" that shows the capacity of the CD.
 

Pydpiper

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Part of the problem is I take most pictures in the highest quality I can, the files are huge!
When I try to burn the program will run for a while then suddenly say "there is no more room on the disc" or something like that, so I have to start over. Dragging and dropping thousands of pics is tormenting, but it looks like thats what I'll have to do. I am looking forward to doing this "networking" thing.
 

Lynx_Arc

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I have a lot of pictures as I collect pictures myself mostly for windows wallpaper. I am running 98 and I had about 100 pic in .BMP format taking up about 250megs and got another program to handle things that uses .JPG files. I now have over 800 pics at about 136megs for wallpaper and another 150megs of various other pictures.

I would try using a picture editing program and convert one to JPG with approx 10-15% loss and check it aside the original. If the difference is unnoticable and acceptable you may want to convert most pictures to the format as it can reduce space by up to 90% thus you could potentially fit several thousands on on CD.

Networking is nice also because it allows very fast moving of files.
 

Pydpiper

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Hmmm.. My "my pictures" folder is comprised of many smaller folders, each given a serial number that codes the date and quantity of each folder (day or event), working with each picture isn't really a feasable option, also there are short .mov clips all throughout, further complicating things.
I have a program called "NTI Backup Now 3" it seems as though it would fill CD's one at a time and let me know when to stick in a new one, I think. The best option for me is going to be the one with minimal user control.
How do I find out if my CD burner is a DVD burner? That seems easy enough..

*edit* I just checked my properties of "my pictures", I have 9.91G of photos on this computer.
 

Starlight

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Your easiest, not necessarily cheapest, solution is the external hard drive. It is available with much more capacity than the 9.9 gig you currently have. It plugs in to the USB port on both your laptop and your desktop. It acts like a second hard drive on both. Your can put all your pictures there as a master, and leave what you have on the computer hard drives. The advantage to that is 2 copies of everything. If your CD won't play DVD's, it certainly won't burn DVD's.
 

gadget_lover

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I like the DVD option for my uses. I'm used to computers, so it's no biggie for me. One of the problems with a second hard disk is the need to keep it safe. It also pretty much gives you only one copy. A catastrophy such as a virus or fire will wipe you out. With a DVD you can make copies as often as you like and even mail one copy to your mom for safekeeping. The disks are about $1 (or less) each.

You can get a USB DVD writer for under $150. It generally requires USB 2.0. They always come with software to manipulate the device.

You can drag and drop a folder at a time to the CD or DVD writer. Some of the software will automatically copy the files and prompt for a new drive as needed.

Keep in mind that all media will go bad eventually. It's a good idea to write to a fresh disk every few years. I've noticed hard drives tend to have only 3 year warranties in recent years. That should tell you something.

Daniel
 

Lynx_Arc

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10gigs would take about 14 or so CDs or 2-3 dvds.
There are programs that can do batch conversions from format to format out there if you did want to convert to save space.
 

Pydpiper

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I am happy to learn there are so many options, I may do a couple of them. I am still leaning towards the DVD recorder, but not as a primary if I have to buy a new one.
I can play DVD's, is there somewhere on my computer that will tell me if I can burn them?

*edit
I found a program on my computer called "NDI CD and DVD maker Gold", thats a good indicator I can do this.. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
So I need DVDs instead of CDs..
 
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