Backup

<p>Hi all. I've a 1tb western digital hard drive that I back up my pc on to. Stupidly I also dumped a lot of photos on there as well, generally used it as a big bin and now I think I've at least 3 of everything. What i'd like to do is drag every photo off the drive, do a cull and start fresh on a new drive. There's photos of my children on there that i'd like to display digitally, and generally safeguard. Is there any way to go through the backup files and extract just photos using some software program? I'm running vista and there are both nikon and canon files.<br>

Thanks<br>

Good luck,take care.<br>

Al</p>

<p>Learn to use the XCOPY and / or Robocopy commands that are built into windows. Examples and a bit of an explanation at:<br>

http://ss64.com/nt/xcopy.html,<br>

http://www.ekho.com/Training_Videos/XCOPY_NOTES.pdf, and many other places on the web.</p>

<p>HTH,</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p>Before you start culling, purchase another drive and back up everything on to it, even if that includes duplicates. Culling is an excellent way to accidentally get rid of files you want.</p>

<p>Yes it's VERY easy to make mistakes doing cleanups like this so take a lot of care.<br>

If your drive is still less than half full, I'd be tempted to partition it into 2 drives, leaving everything you currently have on one partition, then you can use the second partition as a new, clean drive. Then if your copy goes badly wrong, you still have the originals.</p>

post deleted

<p>Some Virus protection software comes with a backup utility that is more rebust than any Xcopy etc.</p>

<p>E.g. Norton's software backup schedules automatic periodic backups, and gives easy interface to manage your backup process. E.g. it knows when you interrupted a backup, etc. and has many useful features.</p>

<p>See if your virus protection software has more robust backup features, that could possibly prevent or minimize your mistakes ?</p>

Why clean it up at all?

 

Figure out how much space you'll free up, what that will return to you in cost per GB, what your time is worth, and the

high risk of a screwup, as noted here already.

<p>Actually, if you've only got the one backup device you might consider getting at least one more for safety's sake. So much can go wrong with a backup, especially if you have a somewhat chaotic filing approach, which it sounds like you (and many of us) have. I agree with Hector about that. Then, moving stuff around would be less stressful if you get something wrong along the way.</p>

<p>Another vote for just getting another disk.<br>

Also, another recommendation for multiple copies on different physical media. I'm probably on the over-cautious/paranoid end of the spectrum, but I have three disks in each backup set (i.e. three identical copies each on a different disk). I even use at least two different disk brands in each set to avoid some hardware/firmware bug...<br>

Also, for copying files I use <a href="http://ipmsg.org/tools/fastcopy.html.en">FastCopy</a>, although I have been thinking about switching to RoboCopy.</p>

(I deleted my earlier post because I went back and re-read what the OP wrote.) It seems to me Al's real problem is he dumped all of his photos ONLY on his backup drive. That's what he wrote in his post. That means his backup drive is a backup for everything EXCEPT those photos he dumped on there "stupidly" (his word, not mine) -- they don't exist elsewhere. So, Al, you need to make sure your photos are on one drive -- whichever one you want -- and maybe on several other locations as backup only -- one main drive for photos and as many as you want for backup. I have four backup hard drives. A friend asked me once how I keep track of it all. The answer is I don't. All of my photos are in one place only -- D drive -- and everything else is just backup. If I didn't have that mindset, I would go nuts.

<p>Will - if your interpretation of the OP is right, then I absolutely agree with you. I recently upgraded (for $129) to a second 2TB drive in the computer and that's where the "original" for everything is stored. I have a 1TB external drive sitting on top the box, backing up all the photos immediately so that's my primary backup in case of a hard-drive problem. And, I have three external drives that I rotate on a weekly (sort of) basis off-site for catastrophe backup. I really rarely look at any of the backup drives, unless I've messed up and deleted something on the machine.</p>

<p>I think there's a second question the OP is asking, which is how to sort through "piles" of photos. As far as I know there's no silver-bullet for that. Maybe plug in a new, blank drive, go through the originals (which need to be on the computer) and drag the keepers to the new hard drive. Then, when everything is cleaned up, move them back to the computer, replacing what is there now. It's a bunch of work, but we've all ended up doing it at some point.</p>

<p>I think the meaning of the OP's statement, <em>"... Is there any way to go through the backup files and extract just photos using some software program? ..."</em>, is crystal clear:</p>

<p>I think he simply was looking for an automated approach like this:</p>

<p>xcopy cluttered_drive:\*.jpg temp_drive:\to_be_culled_folder\*.jpg /S<br>

xcopy cluttered_drive:\*.tif temp_drive:\to_be_culled_folder\*.tif /S<br>

xcopy cluttered_drive:\*.nef temp_drive:\to_be_culled_folder\*.nef /S<br>

etc.</p>

<p>instead of having to manually find, and then drag and drop each and every file and folder using Windows' graphical file explorer.</p>

<p>The OP then states that he intends to work through these new folders that he just created on his temporary drive, cull out dupes and bad pix, and then copy what remains onto a fresh new drive, ie:<br>

xcopy temp_drive:\*.* new_drive:\*.* /S</p>

<p>It was certainly good for everyone to warn the OP not to touch the contents old cluttered drive, but, by his statement that he was going to copy everything over to a new drive suggests that he was not going to overwrite the original cluttered drive.</p>

<p>HTH,</p>

<p>Tom M</p>