I have been soooo good and listened to all the experts about making sure all my photos were backed up. I did just what I was supposed to do - I purchased a 1 Terrabyte External Hard drive a couple of years ago and moved most of my photos there - nearly 10 years worth. I had them organized and categorized by subject and year and other sub-categories! I prided myself on thinking I was being smart and my photos were safe, in case of a computer crash!
But what if the external hard drive fails??? That thought never occurred to me! Now that worst-case scenario has happened! Late last week, out of the blue, my computer stopped recognizing the hard drive - the icon disappeared and no info I've found or any recommended "repairs" I've tried have been able to get it back. So right now I can no longer access it or anything in it; in addition it's making a new and ominous clicking noise when plugged in. As a last resort I am taking it to the Geek Squad at Best Buy this weekend to see if they can work some magic. Wish me luck!!
The good news is that most of my photos are also downloaded on Flickr. Over 20,000 of them!! But not in any real organized manner. So - while they are out there somewhere - I can hardly begin to imagine the amount of work that will be involved going through them all, labeling them and saving them to a new External Hard drive. It will literally take months, maybe years! I guess I know what I will be doing when I can finally retire!!
I also have over 1800 photos on Daily Pics, Facebook and some on this blog, which is good news as well - all of those photos, which are *happily* some of my best, will be much easier to copy to a new drive.
So I am feeling a little heartsick right now! I am not sure what I could have/should have done differently - and this definitely invites more research on how best to keep/store the tens of thousands of digital photos that photographers like me end up with!
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But what if the external hard drive fails??? That thought never occurred to me! Now that worst-case scenario has happened! Late last week, out of the blue, my computer stopped recognizing the hard drive - the icon disappeared and no info I've found or any recommended "repairs" I've tried have been able to get it back. So right now I can no longer access it or anything in it; in addition it's making a new and ominous clicking noise when plugged in. As a last resort I am taking it to the Geek Squad at Best Buy this weekend to see if they can work some magic. Wish me luck!!
The good news is that most of my photos are also downloaded on Flickr. Over 20,000 of them!! But not in any real organized manner. So - while they are out there somewhere - I can hardly begin to imagine the amount of work that will be involved going through them all, labeling them and saving them to a new External Hard drive. It will literally take months, maybe years! I guess I know what I will be doing when I can finally retire!!
I also have over 1800 photos on Daily Pics, Facebook and some on this blog, which is good news as well - all of those photos, which are *happily* some of my best, will be much easier to copy to a new drive.
So I am feeling a little heartsick right now! I am not sure what I could have/should have done differently - and this definitely invites more research on how best to keep/store the tens of thousands of digital photos that photographers like me end up with!
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