Help...emergency!

mintymoneysaver

Thankyou! Have now got my music back and just ploughing my way through the pictures!

closed

Is the pc hard disk full?

always best to leave original copy on pc, backup (preferably using disk imaging at least once) to usb drive, and 1 or more copies of really important data on dvd

mintymoneysaver

Doing well. The only problem is that it keeps telling me it has failed to search drive F so I have now enabled deep scan. Found most things, but still some photos seem to have disappeared, and got my music back, but not my daughter's. i'll keep searching!

mintymoneysaver

Thankyou everyone. I was so stressed yesterday that I forgot to thank everyone as they answered. I have managed to recover all the documents, all the webcam videos, all of the music ( I think) and some of the pictures. The deep search takes a long time, so I've still got to do that for the pictures tonight, and hopefully that will find the rest of them.
I think it was definitely the external hard drive at fault as I have managed to save them back to the PC absolutely fine. I know people said not to, but I reckoned it was the external that they'd disappeared from, so I just left that out of the equation. I saved some to the pen and then just transferred them back.
When I switched the computer on ( with external still attached) computer would not move on from mneeding set up or reboot, and wouldn't let me press any keys, but I unplugged the external, put it back in the box and all seems fine now!
I can't thank you all enough, where would we be without MSE hey?:beer:

mintymoneysaver

closed wrote: »

Is the pc hard disk full?

always best to leave original copy on pc, backup (preferably using disk imaging at least once) to usb drive, and 1 or more copies of really important data on dvd

closed, the problem was that with 4 of us all using cameras and ipods it was getting very full, so we had thought that if we transferred them to an external hard drive that would solve the problem?
We also wanted it for back up in case the computer ever gives up the ghost. This seagate said it was just drag and drop, but as I moved things over it was just copying them , and I wanted to change their location entirely so was cutting and pasting. It seemed to work fine as I say until one of my daughter's music files just seemed to freeze it.
I will get another one as we do want it for back up, but anyone got any better suggestions as to how I should do this? Even if the music stays on the computer I wanted the photos on the external at least. Would I be best to just drag and drop them individually rather than whole folders? And can I then safely delete them from the PC while keeping them safe on the hard drive?
I'm okay with the basics of computers, but a novice really with technical stuff, and I don't want to do anything like this again!!!

Humphrey10

mintymoneysaver wrote: »

And can I then safely delete them from the PC while keeping them safe on the hard drive?

It depends on how important they are to you - if you really don't want to lose them, have 2 copies (on separate storage, not 2 copies on the same disk).

I'd always copy and paste, and not delete the original file until I was sure the new drive worked. I'd also do whole folders at once, or else it would take forever clicking on each file.

Re: music and iPods, do you sync the iPods to the computer? Because if you do this, you want to leave the music collections on the computer, to stop itunes copying all the music back from the iPod to the computer. If you don't sync them, then don't worry about this.

spakkker

Good result !

A 2 TB hdd installed in your pc is cheapest , assuming you have a sata connection free.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/237908

davb

I hope you managed to get all the files back ok after your stressful evening

For what you are doing, I would always copy the files across, and verify them before deleting, maybe after a couple of days.

As far as backup, it really depends on how much your data is worth to you, as to how much time/effort/expense you commit to it.
If you want to be reasonably safe, then you need at least the live data and 2 copies - on the basis that something happens to the live data, and when you brush the dust off your first backup, it doesn't work - so you have a second to fall back on. Normal procedure would be to have at least one of the backups in a different location (building not room).

So, if you get a new external disk (and I would certainly send back the current one), copy your files to it, and verify they are ok, once you delete the files from the PC, you have live data and no backups. You could get a second external disk as a backup (preferably a different make), and then copy the more important files to DVD. The DVD(s) could then be stored at maybe a relatives house.
You can check that all of the files have been copied with something like Winmerge
The other option is some sort of Cloud backup.

closed

See post 13, you need multiple copies on multiple media to backup properly. If you want to go a step further to protect against fire/theft, upload things to the web, or store a copy offsite.

If you safely delete anything from the pc, then you don't have a backup, you have one copy only, external drive fails, they are lost. You've already had a scare, burn the important photo's to dvd now, and leave them in place on the internal drive (photo's don't use much space compared to video's and music), and backup to usb drive, then you have 3 copies.

If the internal drive is really full, (and there may be files you can delete safely to free up space - try ccleaner and windirstat to cleanup and find where the space has gone), then it would be safer to buy a new bigger internal hard disk, image the existing one to the seagate using maxblast (free from seagate website), swap new disk internally, and restore the image to the new bigger hard disk.

Some systems have a d partition, often left empty, check to see if you have one.

How big is the internal hard disk, and how much space have you got free?

mintymoneysaver

Humphrey10 wrote: »

Re: music and iPods, do you sync the iPods to the computer? Because if you do this, you want to leave the music collections on the computer, to stop itunes copying all the music back from the iPod to the computer. If you don't sync them, then don't worry about this.

closed wrote: »

If you safely delete anything from the pc, then you don't have a backup, you have one copy only, external drive fails, they are lost. You've already had a scare, burn the important photo's to dvd now, and leave them in place on the internal drive (photo's don't use much space compared to video's and music), and backup to usb drive, then you have 3 copies.

We do synch to the ipod from the computer. Is it not possible to have the music on the external hard drive and synch from that?

I'm a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to photos and usually actually print copies of the ones I want, but haven't done that lately. I think i will get a pen drive as well though or burn them to DVD like you say, just in case this ever happens again!