Only a scrapbooker could understand

[butterbly]

Ooohhhhh:cry::cry::cry::cry::cry: I have shed so many tears this week, I feel so flat and just wishing that it is all still a bad dream, or a scrapbookers nightmare.

Basically on Monday I was working on a LO and while I was saving it to my EHD, I accidently bumped the external and it tipped on its side, a message came up that an error occured and that the file could not be saved, I felt a little bit of panic but thought thats ok its probably just slight concussion, I will try again. This was when the panic turned into gut wrenching pain, the EHD suffered fatally, and so.....:cry::cry::cry: I have lost everything on it:cry::cry:

I had a computer tech friend look at it and it is beyond repair, I had so much stuff on it, all my scrapbooking, all my photos, heaps of stuff and now its all gone. Thankfully I had only just backed up all my scrapbooking kits last week and I have most of the photos, well enough for me to still scrap some important things. BUT I had not got around to saving my LO's, that was planned for the end of this week, this is definately NOT a case of better late than never.

Anyway DH brought home some software to try and recover the files I took off my computer hard drive to put on the EHD, but not much luck there either.
I had about 90 LO's in my folder, now gone, I'm thankful for DSP for having our own gallery, at least I can still see my LO's, but unfortunately they are not print worthy. I will be able to redo most of the LO's, but there are some which I just wont be able to replicate cause I have lost those photos too. :(

So I have learnt one very important lesson, BACKUP EVERYTHING not once but maybe twice just to be sure.
Sorry if I have bored anybody, I have just needed to vent a little and I know that only here at DSP I will be fully understood.

[Betsyfru]

OH, Sheree, that's terrible! I truly feel for you - if that happened to me I would sink into the worst kind of depression, I think...

[butterbly]

Thanks Betsy, I have started to feel myself getting depressed again, (I was depressed for a few years but have been great for over a year now), scrapbooking has been awesome to help lift you in bad times and the comments people leave are such a boost for the ego. I'm determined to not let it get to me though, I am stronger now, I have tried to find a positive in all this , the only one I can come up with at the moment is that when I redo all of my LO's I will have a new "eye" to look at them with all of the wonderful comments and CC's and learning I have gained here at DSP with the challenges and contests.

[KrystalW]

oh no!!! That is so awful. Sorry that has happened. I know that when my computer was stolen last year I had that same gut wrenching feeling. I lost a few photos...but like you I had been in the process of backing up, so the loss wasn't as bad as it could of been. And I was really lucky that the store was able to resend me the links to the kits I had purchased.

And I also have some LO's in the gallery that I don't have copies of. I have been meaning to scrap them....but keep forgetting.

I back everything up to 2 discs now...but I have been a bit slack, so thanks for the reminder.

[littlekiwi]

I'm doing a similar thing right now as my laptop is rapidly dying

[nkeevers]

Oh, gosh that is so terrible! Thank goodness you still have everything else except the LOs. Thanks for the head up. And you can rant all you want! I'd be doing the same thing.

[Penny M]

Oh, Sheree, I am so sorry. At least you can recreate or redo your layouts. Besides saving, always print so that you will have the printed copy if something should happen to your hard drive or DVD backups.

[Meryl]

Sheree I am so sorry to hear this :( what a bummer! I have become a total bore telling people to back up twice - they look at me in amazement! These EHD's are so vulnerable, knocking over is far too easy to do. Just glad you have some stuff.

[nachtstern]

I am so sorry to hear that!

try to get a trial of AlienSkin BlowUp (it is for photoshop and shows up on automation I think). It does a great job blowing up pictures without losing too much quality.

[TracyMHunt]

Oh Sheree I'm so sorry. I had some of my photo get corrupted during the transfer from the camera and the software setting was set to format the card! I cried for days over those prom pictures.
I didn't even think about my EHD having a problem! I tote it from room to room without a thought of care! I guess I need to get some DVDs and start a new BU system.

[amclose]

Thanks Betsy, I have started to feel myself getting depressed again, (I was depressed for a few years but have been great for over a year now), scrapbooking has been awesome to help lift you in bad times and the comments people leave are such a boost for the ego.

Maybe a LO of the feelings and tears surrounding this event could be therapeutic. There would definitely be many here that would share your pain. You could have a selection of the tiny LO's from your gallery to remind you of the ones you lost. If we scrap to share our lives with others this is a fitting event to share. It is a sign of our times that the proper functioning of a device the size of a paperback book is something we rely on so heavily. :yes:

In the meantime - many hugs!! :hug:

[Tara]

This is soooo sad and I think we all totally understand your pain!!!! Hugs to you!

One thing you could do with the tiny layouts from DSP is make a layout about layouts. You could save them from DSP and then put the tiny layouts on a layout. Not as good as having the original, but at least it would be something.

I knocked over my external drive once as well and it died. I was horrified. Luckily for me, I had everything backed up on DVDs...but before I figured that all out, let me tell you that I had a VERY unhappy week!!!

[GailS]

Sheree, you said you had a computer friend look at it - just wanted to mention that when my EHD died, my techie friend took it apart and plugged the drive directly into his computer as a slave drive and was able to move every last file to a new EHD - plus he came over and plugged it into my computer as an extra drive and it's working fine. Mine died as the result of controller failure, not a fall, but just thought I'd mention it to you - mine was beyond repair as an EHD also and I nearly threw it away. Sorry about your loss, especially if nothing has worked for you - I lost a lot of pictures once and I do double backups now too. :hug:

[jennilynn10]

I'm so sorry!!! That is so upseting!!

I learned this from another DSPer, PQ Fran. You could try using the program by Alien Skin called Blow Up. You download your jpegs from DSP, and the Blow Up program can really make them much larger (hopefully, to print!). They have a 30 day free trial download. I hope this helps.

[scamptx]

Perhaps DSP should start an list of all of us who have had computers stolen, hard drives crash, and EHDs that have failed. We are a large number, and it's not a pretty sight.

My heart goes out to you, and once again it's another reminder to me that I need to get those CDs burned! I'm backing up on 2 EHDs but it's getting confusing--I can't remember what's backed up in both without really working at it! I've got to get organized!

[shazzt]

That is so horrible! At least you saved most of your photos though (but such a bummer about your layouts). Backing up is such a pain - and oh so necessary. I have taken to uploading my print quality layouts to Flickr as well as to EHDs. You won't see them there because of the privacy settings that I use but it gives me an extra peace of mind/off site back up option and it is quick, easy and relatively cheap. I wouldn't ever totally rely on one solution though - call me paranoid!!

[idtwinmom]

Sheree, my heart goes out to you! Gundi recently discovered a similar fate. She lost 120 LO's when her DS accidentally knocked her EHD on the floor. I myself lost a DVD's worth, not when it was ruined, but when my DH lost the whole DVD. At least they were all printed. I have now started doing double backups, but still don't have a good place to store them away from the house. I still could do it more frequently.

Feeling for you!

[GrandmaCrys]

I'm with Scamp; I also have 2 EHDs and back up on both. Also burn to CD, but I'm not so sold on that plan either, as I have photos burned to a CD from a vacation in 2004 and my computer will no longer read that! :(

So sorry about your woes, Butterfly; hoping some of the hints will help you! :hug: :hug:

[Emma]

I THINK my stuff is backed up, but honestly I am not sure. We have a mirror backup run every so often to copy things onto our server, but it's been awhile since I've seen the dialog box running it, and it errors a lot.

My photo folders are such a mess right now with rejected photos needing to be deleted, old layouts that need to be flattened and PSD files deleted. I am running out of room, out of memory, and I already ran out of time.

Another reminder to get around to actually DOING it!

[shawsi]

You are right Sherree...only a true scrapbookin' heart could possibly connect with yours over this. We all feel your pain. Still hopin' with you for fix on this.

[carolyn d]

I had a similar thing happen to me in July.. I had backed up edh1 to ehd 2 and burned several cds of a wedding album I was almost finished with. I put both ehds on my desk...
Later that evening, while learning to walk on crutches, I started to fall, hit the desk to catch my self...knocked the ehds together, they bounced off the desk shelf, smashed the newly made cd's, and then proceeded to bounce off the desk and onto the floor..

Neither was recognized by my computer, so I sent them in for data retrieval. Yes, I was willing to pay the $1200. 00 for full recovery. Alas, neither ehd was retrievalble... every file was irrevocably lost. (the entire wedding album and all photos, my son's bachelors and masters graduation ceremonies, my daughter's coll grad ceremonies, my younger son's high school and college grads, a job I was doing for a friends' business- over 200 product shots as well as her business cards, varous parties and other special events, vacations, and all my dsp kits)

DSP reactivated all my kits so I was able to recoup most of them.

I had placed many layouts here at dsp as well as on facebook. So I still have them. I've increased their size by fractals and have used Alien Skin's BLOW UP 2 to sharpen the details as much as possible. I just received 2 of them back and while the quality is not as perfect as if they had been original sized files, it is more than adequate and most people I've shown them to can't really notice any difference. Now I can send in the 40 or so others that were "resized" from on line locations. The ones with little journaling or just word art titles did ok at 12x12, and the journaled ones are 8x8. The smaller printed size helps keep the fonts crisper.

It's been a long road since July.
My ehd's have been replaced. (they were still under warranty)
Now when I open my media card on my computer, I immediately burn all to a cd which is filed in a fireproof box. A second cd copy is made and stored at my mom's house.
Everything is then transfered to ehd #1 and 2. # 2 is immediately disconnected and placed in the fireproof box.

I keep all the kit zip files on cd as well. I burn the new zip to cd immediately after downloading it. And guess where these go... yes ! into the fireproof box !

Same routine for all completed psd files !

My heart was so broken- especially losing the grad photos. !!! Since I'm the "family photographer" no one else ever brings a camera ! I only have 1 existing photo of my older son's masters grad because I had posted it here. None of his bachelors grad. And only 1 of my daugher's. I have none of my younger son's . these are the most gut wrenching for me.

So as you can see, I SO KNOW HOW YOU FEEL !!!! So, backup, backup, backup, burn to cds and store a copy of your most precious things off site !

[maryjos]

I'll throw out another option for you all. I double backup most of my stuff...but also use an online backup service. Basically, I can just go into Windows Explorer and mark any folder to be backed up and it just runs in the background, backing up files as it finds new or changed ones. The service I use costs $50 a year for unlimited space, and is the best I've used in terms of ease of use. I have about 120 gig of files backed up (uploading to a remote server even on a broadband connection can be somewhat slow, so that is actually a TON of data that took quite some time to upload) so in the event of something really catastrophic like a fire, I know all my most important stuff....all my work for clients, scrapbook stuff, tax and financial records, etc. can always be recovered. And what I like about it, is there's so much less work for me involved. I still do regular backups of my entire system...but I love knowing that if I create a layout today, by tomorrow at the latest, it's been backed up and saved automatically.

If anyone would be interested in using or trying the service I use, drop me a PM with your email and I'll send you a referral (that gives you a free month...and I get a referral credit as well). Currently it's Windows only, Mac is supposed to be supported as well very soon.

[butterbly]

Thankyou to everyone for your comments, I have learnt a valuable lesson, but you have also given me some great advice and some tips which I will definitely be taking on board.
Carolyn I feel for you so much, that would have been so hard to deal with, I am also going to triple backup and also send my mum copies of the dvds so she has them safe at her house should something ever happen here.
Thanks for the advice re Alien Skin, that sounds great, will definitely be doing that.

Thanks again, you are all wonderful and really know how to comfort and cheer someone up :love2:

[Song Catcher]

After reading this story to my husband, he got up and brought me his 300g and said back it up now!! So I guess that's what I'm going to do in a few minutes. Double backup, no putting it off any longer. Thanks for sharing your misfortune. Jackie

[maryjos]

Here's another suggestion for those that don't currently back up anything outside of the home and don't want to pay for an online backup service. There's also one I have used in the past called mozy.com. I switched as I didn't care for the service once I moved to a paid option (the one I mentioned above I feel is better), but they do have a "starter" option that allows you to back up 2 gig for free. That's not a ton of space, but it's enough to save about 300-400 scrapbook pages exported to jpeg format (more depending on the size and if you use any compression on the files).

You could also use something like this as a temporary storage if you do manual backups. As you create your scrapbook pages, save them to the online backup folder...it will automatically backup these as you create them. Then just copy them to a permanent location before doing any EHD backups, and remove them from the online folder. This way you get the benefit of making sure your work is saved in between backups in the event of a crash, for no cost.

[allsmilz61772]

omg, i so feel for you, i had TWO back up drives after two computer crashes. I had an external NAS drive (dont buy WD btw) that just suddenly kaput, luckily I had gotten tired of going to my parents house and not having anything to work with, so I had bought a small portable external hard drive to put my photos and scrapping things on. When the NAS crashed I ended up only losing my music and videos (that I hadnt erased off the dv tapes yet whew) Now this portable is being squirrely about reading so ive been frantically backing my things up the old fashioned way, about 100 dvds. Im talking about a new computer, new NAS and getting this thing fixed, but probably wont be throwing those dvds away JUST in case

[Abby]

Gad, it just makes you feel so very vulnerable! I'm an EHD (2) and CD, DVD type saver, but have more and more inclination to go the off-site web-type solution. Of course, then you're totally vulnerable if they happen to be crooks, or get vandalized (or whatever happens to on-line things) ... just a creepy feeling!

[cats4jan]

I got up this morning and decided to backup my one EHD onto my other EHD. Now, I'm reading this thread and I know this is worth the effort. I keep one of the EHD's unconnected most of the time - because I am fearful that a virus will wipe out both internal and external.

I also keep my LO's on DVD. But, I don't save my kits to disk because that isn't a loss that is irreplacable.

I guess there is no such thing as too much back-up - when it comes to photos - and now, I feel the same way about my "babies" - those pages - good and bad - that I created with my heart.

[carolat]

After a computer crash (both internal and external hard drives crashed) I finally have a backup plan in place that I can see doing. My biggest problem with a backup is that I am inherently lazy & I don't like to do more that is necessary.

Well, here's hoping that none of us ever loses any of our pages again!

[maryjos]

I found another online backup option that might be of interest to you all. Again, I feel these are best used as a secondary backup in case of anything going wrong with your full backup, and also a nice way to just back up a few files at a time (like after each scrapping session) so that you don't lose data you haven't yet backed up otherwise.

This one uses Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Solution) servers. This is a new service from Amazon that many of us that do web development are starting to use. You basically get access to all these high-powered servers that Amazon runs, and pay just for the space and bandwidth that you use. What I found is a software that basically taps into this service, to use it for online backups. The software runs on either Windows and Mac and is a one-time fee of $20. Storage on an S3 is $0.15 per gig, and additional for the data transfer. So the service I use is definitely cheaper if you store a lot of data, but if you want something you have a lot of flexibility with, can use to share files with multiple computers, has Amazon-level reliability and speed, and are tech-savvy enough to handle a slightly more complicated setup, this might be worth trying.

Jungle Disk (http://jungledisk.com/index.aspx)

[Emma]

my hard drive is FULL, literally got a message saying it could not download the rest of my pictures for lack of space. Troy bought a 1TB external drive, backed up my personal drive to it, and I've been deleeeeeting so many photos and old PSD layouts (keeping the printable JPEGs and web JPEGs only). Once that's done he'll redo the back up on the EHD and our server.

My drive was just spinning and spinning non-stop, grinding away, trying to cache things and nowhere to do it, just begging to crash. So we hurried to back it all up while I do maintenance just in case of a loss. Bridge only works for about 10 minutes at a time, because then the cache is full forcing me to close and reopen and keep on deleting.

When you are digital and take 150 photos and get 2 good ones, be sure to delete the 148 bad ones right away! It is so much harder when the kid grows up, or the person dies, or after you've gained weight :p to delete even bad photos. So just do it when you upload them!!! Save yourself some grief.

[Margie]

how sad!!!! i do back up to two externals, cause (as you sadly found out) you just never know! but i'm going to use www.carbonite.com as an online option too, just to have it off-site. i had a crash and fortunately all was backed up, though it's a pain just reinstalling, but i was SO thankful it's all there. so sorry for the stuff you lost though!!!!