My Tale of Woe

[photofinish]

I work with computers all day long, so I know what could happen to them when fate decides to strike. That's why I back up my originals and processed files to DVD periodically.

But the old saying 'haste makes waste' is still alive and true. I just got back from a shoot and I had a 1 gig card to process, but I was nearly out of space in my hard drive partition. So, I cut the first of four DVD's worth of files from my new 20D camera. When the first DVD was cut, I popped it out of the reader and put it back in to force the computer to re-read the DVD. This would ensure I had a valid backup before I deleted the directories.

My mistake came when I negelected to perform this extra step after burning the successive three DVD's before deleting the directories. And wouldn't you know it, two of the remaining three DVD's had encountered a 'soft error' in the boot sector of the DVD. Apparently this was not enough to fail the burn, since it appears to be due to a defect in the DVD media itself. I had two bad DVD's in my 30-pack bundle AND I had deleted half of my first pictures from my new 20D camera!!! :cry:

So, the moral of this story is to always double check your DVD/cd backup BEFORE deleting your directories! :oops:

[NJDrew]

Im in no way a pro photographer, but I am a big computer geek :D

Look online for info on the "soft error" in the DVD boot sector, because I would bet that there is software out there that will parse threw the data on the disc and recover most of those photos. Also try www.shareware.com I will do some searching of my own and post up anything I find.

[photofinish]

Thanks, NJDrew, let us know what you find.

In the mean time, here's an article that talks about the usual care and feeding issues, but at the end of the article mentions a cool utility that will check the cd/dvd for bad sectors: http://www.rogercavanagh.com/helpinfo/37_cdsafe-1.stm

[JZaun]

Yep been there done that. NOW I copy to C drive, then copy to D drive then write to DVD, then erase CF!! :D :D

JZ

[chris.bailey]

I'm Paranoid so -

Copy to work drive.
Backup work drive to Firewire Backup drive.
Burn CD/DVD from work drive.
Disconnect Firewire Backup drive and place in Firesafe.
Format CF card.

[hennie]

DVD's are to small for backups.
Need more storage.
Desparately waiting for affordable bluray burner.

[WMS]

Considering just how inexpensive CF cards have become why not just save them as an original backup?

Wayne

[mattyb240]

Import to computer>Back Up library (separate external hard drive)>Time Machine Backup (separate external hard drive)

[tim]

DVD's are to small for backups.
Need more storage.
Desparately waiting for affordable bluray burner.

You posted on a five year old thread...

[mattyb240]

Doh!

[snyderman]

Lesson learned. I upload sports pics to a website for our local HS. I absolutely NEVER delete the RAW files on the card, (taking steps all the way back original files) until the upload of processed images from home PC to website is complete.

Bad stuff can, and WILL happen! Sorry you ran into problems!

dave

[DStanic]

I tried backing up to DVDs, but after doing a few I realized it was too time consuming and they don't hold enough (I save my RAW files). First I save to the PC hard drive, then to the external. Only after that do I erase the card (If it's something important). I plan on getting a second external drive soon and try to backup more pics to my zenfolio as well.

[neilwood32]

This topic crops up again and again (even 5 years later) and the only answer is to back up.

My routine : Download the images from the card, save to data drive (seperate to the system drive), back up to external drive, then format the card.

[Cromfel]

I had friend just complain how hes music backups dont play at all, and they were only 5 years old. So I would be careful with DVD also. Lousy quality medium = problems in few years even if its supposed to last for ~100 years.

Edit: I have no idea why the backups dont work. I didnt believe it was problem with the discs until I take em to my home and test it. He stored all discs on appropriate box so they were never exposed to sunlight more than what it takes to put em to drive.

[gjl711]

I had friend just complain how hes music backups dont play at all, and they were only 5 years old. So I would be careful with DVD also. Lousy quality medium = problems in few years even if its supposed to last for ~100 years.

Edit: I have no idea why the backups dont work. I didnt believe it was problem with the discs until I take em to my home and test it. He stored all discs on appropriate box so they were never exposed to sunlight more than what it takes to put em to drive.For long term storage make sure you use genuine archival media like Taiyo Yuden or something similar. THe cheap DVDs dye can migrate causing disk failure.

[OdiN1701]

If you just deleted and didn't write anything else to it, you should be able to recover it.

I have recovered stuff off of cards that have been formatted in the camera.

[tfizzle]

I burnt to dvd's. Checked them and they worked. 8 months later the person wanted some prints. I pulled the photos from the dvd and 17 of the RAW files weren't able to be brought back for some odd reason.

That's why they went on an external harddrive.

[Wilt]

Burnable DVDs are not nearly archival enough. They are designed to be burned at high speeds, so the dyes are not even as stable as burnable CD dyes! We have a collection of VCR tapes of children's programs, and I tried to burn some of them to DVD in the event that our VCR committed hari kiri one day. I recently have discovered that several of the DVDs which were burned several years ago and verified as working, are NOW NOT WORKING!

[firstclass]

Burnable DVDs are not nearly archival enough.
Quoted for truth. Optical media that you burn yourself is not for long term storage.

With the trivial cost of hard drives these days (compared to the cost of even a Rebel, let alone a xxD or xD) it's definitely worth it to set up at the very least a hard drive for backups, and probably RAID as well. You can get 1.5 TB for ~$100 now, you have NO excuse not to back up to a hard drive. For example, the MTBF on this Segate that's currently $100 on Newegg is 750,000 hours. That's over 85 years. How long do you think your optical media will last? How about flash media? Certainly not that long. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148412&cm_re=1.5tb-_-22-148-412-_-Product

[mbellot]

Quoted for truth. Optical media that you burn yourself is not for long term storage.

With the trivial cost of hard drives these days (compared to the cost of even a Rebel, let alone a xxD or xD) it's definitely worth it to set up at the very least a hard drive for backups, and probably RAID as well. You can get 1.5 TB for ~$100 now, you have NO excuse not to back up to a hard drive. For example, the MTBF on this Segate that's currently $100 on Newegg is 750,000 hours. That's over 85 years. How long do you think your optical media will last? How about flash media? Certainly not that long. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148412&cm_re=1.5tb-_-22-148-412-_-Product

+1

My only disappointment with external hard drives as "backup" media is the trash enclosures the manufacturers use.

I've had two Maxtor OneTouch III drive (a 500gb and a 750gb) both "die" less than a year after purchase. Two huge heart attacks since the 500 died a week after a huge dance recital and the 750 went out a week before the latest recital. Fortunately both drives were actually OK, in both cases the USB adapter inside the enclosure croaked.

I've looked into "online" backups (Mozi, Carbonite, etc), but none of them are really viable since I've already amassed ~ 750GB of RAW and processed files that need to be backed up (yeah, I could live without the processed files in a pinch - but thats less than 20% of the total).

Until I find something workable the pile of hard drives will continue to collect. :lol:

[firstclass]

My only disappointment with external hard drives as "backup" media is the trash enclosures the manufacturers use.
My solution to this is to not use external hard drives. I buy only internal drives and have one of these. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153071&cm_re=thermaltake_dock-_-17-153-071-_-Product

Just have a stack of internal drives around and pop them in as needed. If they are true "backup" drives, then you should only need to access them infrequently, so you don't need or want constant connection to you machine. Backup means they're away from the primary machine except when you're actually updating your backup.

As an added bonus, internal drives are cheaper, so you buy one dock and a lot of internal drives, and don't waste money on an enclosure for each drive.

[gorgon2k]

I read the entire first post and im thinking 1GB cards? full Hard Drive? What is the 2004?! and then I look and it is.