Well, I finally took Barbara Brundage's suggestion & bought a CD/RW drive yesterday. Any suggestions on how best to back up a partitioned hard drive to it and (back on-topic) how best to use the CD/RW with PSE2?
Many thanks.
Owl
Owl, one suggestion that's been made here in the past that caused me to
change my ways: CD-R discs are more reliable for archiving purposes than
CD-RW discs. Yes, you lose the ability to add on and write over, but if
they're truly being used to archive, that shouldn't be a big issue. A
compromise is to archive your originals on CD-R and back up your working
copies on CD-RW. I've gotten to the point where I just write everything to
CD-R, one CD-R (or sometimes more) per folder (I generate a new folder for
each day of shooting). If I've created a lot of new edited copies, I'll cut
a new CD-R and replace the obsolete one. Sure glad CD-R's are cheap....
Chuck
Another advantage to CD-R over CD-RW is you don't have to format them in advance and the price today is certainly an advantage; almost throw away prices.
Just remember that CD files always are READ ONLY and you don't want to open them and try to work them while on the CD. Copy the file onto your hard drive, THEN change the attribute from Read Only there and work away.
Bob
I never really had anything to add to this topic......until recently. I was using a CD-RW to backup everything of importance until one day I couldn't read files or copy files to it. I did manage to recover some files from the CD-RW and copied them to a CD-R. You can add to a CD-R with some software but once you save something that space is lost forever. I use a light version of Roxio Easy CD Creator and you can save files to a CD-R but not finalize the CD and then you can go back and add files. I haven't had any realiability problems doing this and now all my important files/photos go to CD-R and I'll use the CD-RW for tempory purposes.
I have to agree with Brian, I stopped using CD-RW and just use CD-R now.
I've had far too many instances of file system corruption on a CD-RW to
trust them. CD-R has worked out well for me.
Bob
By the way,many burning softwares can write on CD-R until they are totally
filled, on several different occasions. That means, if you burn something
and it doesn't fill the entire 650 (or 700) MB of space, you may burn some
more files later. This is called "sessions" and a CD can hold many sessions
(don't know the exact number of them).
Ray
Yes, in jaguar you can set up "sessions" in the finder, Owl. The directions are here <http://docs.info.apple.com/article2.html?artnum=107240>. Or you can do it easily with Toast, if that's what you're using. (I'm not sure if finder burning works with external drives.)
Barbara - now that is the first really strong argument I've heard for upgrading to 10.2 - I didn't know Jaguar could do that, and I don't have Toast. (I don't have any money for discretionary spending until my credit card bill is paid off next month either. My husband and I have been in retail therapy mode this week...mid-winter sale time here! )
Susan S
Thanks Barbara - that was the plan - although I don't see any mention of the minimum specs to run it! It sounds a bit graphics heavy for the G3 to handle. I plan to get broadband when we come back from our overseas jaunt, and that will allow me to keep up with the inevitable downloads and bug-fixes.
Susan S.
Barbara Brundage asked: But Owl, now that I think about it--how old is your computer? Doesn't it have a cd burner already?
Nope. I'm on a Kihei iMac, circa 1999/2000 or thereabouts. In fact, that's another rreason I had put off buying an external burner. I knew that, someday, I'd replace this iMac, and the replacement would have a burner as standard equipment. That purchase won't happen for quite awhile, though, even with the introduction of the G5's the other day.
Owlz
Barbara B.
I sure am glad you are here. I do not think I would have made the switch to MAC if you were not and I am sure glad I made the switch.
Thanks for the referral for the multisession program on one CD. Although my Nero software supposedly had that capability, I usually could not do it. I also have the opposite question. If I have a file that is too large to put on a single disc, can I program to stop when the CD is full and pick up at the same place to finish on a new disc. I never could figure that out on my Windows unit and Nero software. I had to do it image file by file until one CD was filled then one by one on the next CD until I was done. I would like to deal with the entire file as a unit. This is not an uncommon occurrance as I may take over 100 pictures per day, then stored under a single file of that day, and can easily exceed 700 MB. I looked briefly in the Apple Help where the other reference was and did not see the topic I wanted. Maybe I should have looked longer.
Would you write more about the G5 and Finding Nemo? Apparently something significant happened with it and the G5 but I am not at a level to understand what you wrote. Will the G5 be faster at playing games? I do not play them myself, but the computer magazines I read are filled with stories about how fast their Windows hot rod rig is for games and use that one criteria to claim superiority for Windows units over MACs. Any thoughts?
Thank you,
Carl
Carl, here's <http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance> the specs page, but it's not the same as watching it work.
BTW, FWIW, Adobe announced a maintenance update there yesterday for photoshop for later this summer/fall. I doubt it would affect PE directly, though.
I should mention, though, that these benchmark tests are always the subject of endless argument, regardless of whether they're done for macs or pcs.
Marty, it's really surprising to me that you can't read a CD-R disc from the
old computer on the new computer's CD-RW drive. Are you sure the new drive
is functioning properly?? Is one of the drives on the old computer a CD
read-only, not a burner?
Chuck
Marty, another possibility....
If your old CD's were created with CD Creator (Roxio) and weren't closed to be read on any computer that could be the problem.
Dick
Dick, that may be the 'Aha' Marty is looking for....
Pete, that would be a problem if Marty couldn't get it to burn a CD that
would be compatible with her new 'puter... Marty, would be nice if you
could get or borrow an external CD-R that could be hooked up to one computer
to burn, the other computer to read...
Chuck
Carl, to get back to your point. No, the part of stuffit I meant isn't anything specifically to do with cds. It's for splitting large files for mailing or whatever. Do you have stuffit standard or stuffit lite?
EDIT I haven't used it, but you might want to give this <http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/13072> a try on a copy of file to see if it works.
Some of the files were big (250 MB/one image) so I would like to do sequential
CDs for backup with the least work. Any suggestions?
Well, the very easiest way is to just burn your cd in the finder--I never use disk copy myself, Just put the disk in, name it and then drag the files to it--at 250 MB a file you only have a couple to drag. Then drag the disk to the trash can. You'll see a burn button in the dock then. (or you can choose burn from the file menu without dragging). Another advantage of finder burning is you don't have all those disk images to mount--you can just drag the files right out of the burned cd to copy them to the desktop for use.
EDIT I don't think you can burn a multi-session cd in the finder though, but I'm not at all sure about that. If you see a black flippy triangle in the "initialize' dialog box, click it and it should be there.
Barbara,
Thanks for the tips. I have been in Federal Court today-as plaintif not defendent thank goodness-and my attornies thought it went well. However, no time for PSE 2 and MAC. What you have given me will get me started along with the Switch to MAC book you recommended by Pogue which is great. He describes things so well I now am starting to understand our Windows unit as he talks about the switch. I'll get back when I have had time for a field test.
Any suggested MAC oriented site or sites I should frequent? You seem to know so many so well.
Thanks
Carl
Hi, Carl. Glad the trial went well.
Forget everything I said about backing up to cd--I just checked the specs and you've got a superdrive as standard equipment on that machine so you can just use dvds instead and not worry about file splitting. Just be sure you get the right format of dvds when you buy the blank discs. (I hope Pogue has a chapter on that, because dvd formats are are a tiresomely complex subject.)
The only mac site (other than the apple support forum) that I visit on a pretty much daily basis is Macsurfer's Headline News <http://macsurfer.com>, which links any mac-related news stories, commentary, software or kbase updates and so on. It's where I have found most of the tutorials I have linked here.
BTW, for any pc users who are still reading, David Pogue also wrote "Windows XP, the Missing Manual." I would guess it's also a very helpful book. He has quite a gift for finding analogies that make sense to those of us who are technologically challenged.
Hi, Carl. Well, there are a lot of forums about mac products, but only one that is officially part of Apple's technical support. It's down for maintenance tonight (well, not completely, but it takes a couple of minutes to load each page right now). I'll link to it when it comes back up again.
EDIT The main page at least, is back. It's here <http://discussions.info.apple.com>.
But be warned, because it is just for tech support it can scare you, since you only see the 4 people who are having a problem with whatever and not the vast majority who don't even know the forum exists because they never needed it.
For a complete list of most of the regular mac sites, go to sitelink <http://www.sitelink.net> and scroll about halfway down the page. (BTW, I think it was Owl and not Ray)
Owl,
Thanks for the URL. I guess I was in my usual state of confusion when I misspoke myself and said Ray.
Barbara,
I count over 30 individual sites at the forum home page. Do you check all of those on a daily basis? I would also like to know sometime how you do that clever thing about the site is "here" and a click takes you there. That is neat.
Thanks
Carl
Hi, Carl. Link-making was discussed in this <http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@@no-spam> thread.
As for the apple forums (which will still be down tomorrow), no, I don't read all of them, mostly just Appleworks, iMac, and the various OS X forums. I scan through the ibook and powerbook forums once in a while but don't post there--they have very good Helpers there, so no need.
As a follow-up, on my MAC Powerbook with Os X-Jaguar and iPhoto 2, with scanned images both in and not in iPhoto 2, all went from hard drive to DVD. It was about a 3 GB transfer and, although I did not time it, seemed to go pretty fast to me.
Just in case anyone is interested
Carl
Hi, Carl. I just ran across a freeware utility that allows multi-session cd burning in the finder. It's called "jaguar cd essentials' and you can find it here <http://www.luciddawn.com> by clicking on products and then on its name on the next screen.
Well, if you decide to keep it, stick it your applications folder. I myself save documents to my documents folder and I have a folder called "deskjunk" that sits on my desktop where I shove whatever I'm working on at the moment or anything I downloaded that I haven't burned to a backup cd yet or decided what to do with.
BTW, the one thing that can make big trouble is using the word "desktop" in a folder that goes on your desktop, You can confuse your system that way, with pretty undesirable results.
Barbara,
I now have a folder on my desktop labelled "desk folder" (pretty imaginitive eh?). Is your system different that mine? I can understand putting the folder in question in my Applecations (if that is not the correct spelling it ought to be the spelling) folder since it is to do something (make a multi-session CD). I do not understand why I would think of putting it in my documents folder.
Many Thanks
Carl
Carl, I'm pretty sure Barbara meant that if something is really a document, she saves it to Documents, and if it's an application, she puts it in Applications, etc. I don't use iPhoto, so I also have a "Photos" folder in my Home area, with subfolders that are more specific. The trick here is just to label things in a way that makes sense to you and store them where you'll think to look for them! :)
What Beth said! 8^)
Carl, my last computer was a peforma and those were set up to automatically put EVERYTHING into the documents folder. This was great when it was time to back up--you didn't have to rummage all around your hard drive looking for folders. In X, your user folder pretty much does the same thing, but I still like using the documents folder--I keep an alias of it in my favorites and then everything I might be looking for is right there. No hunting.
Hi
Bear in mind that everytime you write a multisession a Table of Contents is written - in effect the directory. This seems to take about 12Mb each time. As the media is a write once type the previous TOC cannot be made to link to the additional file(s) so a new full TOC has to be written.
Derek
Right...Aha....I think that's the problem.
I do have a place on the old computer where they ask if you want to copy onto a disk that can be read on any computer or read on only this computer. I might have checked the latter. Guess I'll have to wait till I get the old computer running again.
Thanks for putting the bug in my ear.
Marty
Owl
CD-R is good for a permanent archive
CD-RW is good for a working archive; eg if you spend several sessions working on an image, you can archive to RW and overwrite each time. You don't have to keep everything as it was first written.
Thats how I use them.
(I'm no expert, just like things done the easy way)
Paul
Yes, Owl. A CD-RW drive writes to both kinds of disks. The drive is always called a CD-RW (for CD-read and write). A disk that is labelled CD-R means that once it is written on,you can't make changes again, whereas a CD-RW disk means you can both read and write to it. The difference is in the disk medium, not the drive that writes them.
It is very tempting to use CD-RW for things you overwrite a lot, like Quicken files. The problem is that usually those are the things that you most want to keep from getting damaged and CD-RWs are notoriously unstable. Kind of annoying, because I hate the idea of filling America's landfills with coasters, but till something better comes along....
"Kind of annoying, because I hate the idea of filling America's landfills with coasters, but till something better comes along.... "
And this is exactly why I keep using my almost-obsolete Zip drive! I've been using Zip disks since they were first introduced more years ago than I can remember and have never had one go bad on me. They're just so quick and easy - and definitely reuseable. Sometimes the "new" way isn't always the most efficient for all purposes.
I agree, Beth. I've never been able to work up as much scorn for the good old floppy as is currently fashionable, either. 8^)
Beth, I have a Zip drive, too - but it's become dusty since I got my CD
writer. I stopped using it when I read of a rash of failures of Zip drives
which not only killed the Zip disc but also the whole drive - I think it was
referred to as the 'death rattle' or something graphic like that. Never
happened to mine, but I lost confidence in it.
I guess it's safe to say that anything that has a motor and read-write
heads is going to fail eventually...
Chuck
Beth, I heard the same Zip drive horror stories Chuck did, a few years ago, from a contractor at the National Archives. At the time, she mentioned a web site devoted to the subject -- which I never checked out -- since I decided to switch to backup hard drives. And unlike Zip drives, CDs have had universal acceptance with my clients.
So when I made the transition from a G3 to G4 PowerBook, I never bothered to purchase an external Zip drive. (One of the things I miss about my old G3 PB, was the INTERNAL Zip, floppy and backup hard drive that went into the spare battery compartment -- along with the CD/DVD player.)
I paid $1,000 for my first 5MB hard drive -- back when floppies were 400K -- so I still marvel at the size and cost of CD storage. But I'm more than ready to make the move to DVDs!
I'm glad to be distancing myself from magnetic media, after a salesman for used broadcast quality videotape stock descibed it as "little more than rust glued on plastic."
By the way, the latest version of DiskWarrior now monitors the deterioration of hard drives, to give us Mac users a heads up before data loss. So I'm still trying to reorganize my images via iView Media Pro, on my hard drives, before archiving everything on CD.
I used to run frequent diagnostic tests on my Zip disks, but at 55, I'm quite sure my CDs will likely outlast me. As someone who appreared on television BEFORE videotape, I'm glad we've finally solved the problem of "generation" loss.
A few years ago I met a woman who owns a very successful microfilm business, since she guaranteed her film would last for hundreds of years -- and she could transfer the data to a personal computer at extremely high speed.
Since Matthew Brady's photos look as good today as they did during the Civil War, we should be transferring our digital images to glass plates. Now that's a novel idea -- and you read it here first! ;-)
Since Matthew Brady's photos look as good today as they did during the
Civil War, we should be transferring our digital images to glass plates.
Actually, those deteriorate horribly over time unless very carefully cared for. I worked for a while for the New Haven Colony Historical Society many years ago, and they had probably the second or third best collection of glass plate photography in the country, but it was all self-destructing because there was no money to save it. Pity.
Well I hope you guys didn't misunderstand me. I don't permanently archive to Zips and never have. They're a wonderful interim media for those of us who try to keep a close eye on what goes in the garbage can. :)
Beth,
I used to use the Zips for backups and interim storage, for transferring between computers...but then I decided to use CD-Rs for the first two, and memory cards from my cameras in a USB card reader for transferring files. I got that idea from you, come to think of it.
:o)
Bert
Ha! You're right! I did do that for a while, but I kind of got out of the habit and back to using my Zips again. A good thing, too, because now my husband is off on vacation with the camera and all of the cards! :) Unlike a number of other forum folks, I've also had an external drive for a couple of years that can be used with either of my computers, so my serious data backups (not stuff to be archived) are done on it.
Beth,
I've also had an external drive for a couple of years
I'm thinking of buying an external USB2.0 or Firewire drive of at least 120 GB capacity. I know it's more expensive than an internal drive, and I know it's slower, but my plan is to use it for my photo archive. I would copy files to the internal drive when I'm working on them, so the slower access and data transfer rate would not be a problem.
It would make migration to a new computer in a year or two a non-problem...just plug it in and go!
Whaddayathink?
Bert
Good to hear that common sence and good thinking is in full effect here. <
grin > The only worse thing than hearing those terrible ,"I forgot to back
it up and now I lost everything" stories is having it happen to you.
"Bert Bigelow" <bigelowrs@no-spam> wrote in message
news:1de9a270.54@no-spam
> Beth,
>
> I've also had an external drive for a couple of years
>
>
>
>
> I'm thinking of buying an external USB2.0 or Firewire drive of at least
120 GB capacity. I know it's more expensive than an internal drive, and I
know it's slower, but my plan is to use it for my photo archive. I would
copy files to the internal drive when I'm working on them, so the slower
access and data transfer rate would not be a problem.
> It would make migration to a new computer in a year or two a
non-problem...just plug it in and go!
> Whaddayathink?
> Bert
For my 2 cents worth, I would still buy an enclosure and put my own drive in
it. There is also the other point that if a pre-made external drive goes
belly up, you might not be able to open it or to replace the drive, with the
enclosure you know that you can; and trust me, it could not be any simpler.
Bear in mind thatt I enjoy building computers and their subsystems so I
found this a pleasent experience. The only difficultity I had was formating
the new "second" drive under Windows XP Pro. It seems that good 'ole Bill
took away those trusty standbys, Fdisk, Sys and format. A new procedure
MUST be used. Thanks Bill < grin >.
Tom
That's pretty much how I've been doing it, and it's been working fine for me. It's especially handy because I have the two computers and can connect it to either one. When I rebuilt the desktop last Winter, I backed up all my data files to the external, and reloading everything on the new hard drive was really simple. I backed up the laptop last week, too, because hubby has that with him along with the camera. [My toys are gone!!! :( ]
You also might be surprised at how fast you can access the data. Mine is a 7200 rpm firewire, and if there's something on it I want to print, I don't need to copy the file, I just print from the external.
Beth,
Mine is a 7200 rpm firewire
Firewire and USB 2.0 are both about the same bus data rate. USB spec is a little higher, but in actual tests that I've read about, they're about the same.
Bert
Beth,
did you by any chance post the speeds for FW400 and FW800 backwards?
Nope. That's what the article said. It's on page 36 in the August PC World.
Bert