Just the other day I was saying to myself how well my PC had been running. It's three years old now and my dad bought it for me as a birthday present when I first started taking photography seriously. It's great for what it is (compaq, 250gb hard drive, very fast and holds a lot of things).
Now today was a very different story.. I loaded it this morning before going out and when it got to the desktop, you couldn't click anything, everything had loaded in the system tray but you couldn't click on anything, the whole screen had FROZEN. So I thought, hey fair enough I'll reboot, so I did.. and same thing happened.. again and again and again, again..
I absolutely hate when computers go wrong, I often can handle it but it just annoys me, there was no reason for it to go wrong today, I hadn't done anything, there's hardly any date there since i moved it over to my external drive! So after a few hours of getting frustrtated, deleting recent programs in safe mode and trying to press f8 unsuccesfully around 100 times (even that stopped working) it wouldn't even load properly or get to the desktop without freezing. So I phoned PC world and get this, I pay £8.00 a month to insure the damn thing and all I get on the phone is some guy telling me it needs to be put back to factory settings.. I told him I had files on the desktop and being a photographer they were important, as well as my Adobe programs etc.. and he says there's nothing I can do. So I basically pay that much money a month.. and for what? for someone to tell me something so totally obvious!
So yeah, I gave in and factory restored. I lost my recent edited files from a shoot, but at least the unedited were still on my memory card. Just gives me extra work to do!
How I wish I was technically minded.
Monday, 21 July 2008
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Computers are such rubbish but we depend so much on them because they are amazing *sigh* I haven't had to do that yet, but a friend of mine has done that SIX times within the past 6months of getting a new laptop in January. Absolutely ridiculous. I keep my all my photos and edited ones on an external HD. Hope you didn't loose too much!
PCs do that, no matter if you're a computer engineer. They just go crazy for whatever reason -or none at all XD
The best solution is to have an extra hd or an external one, just like you... and avoid saving important files into desktop or my documents (I'm doing it way too much lately)
Next time you could umount the disk and with a friend's help of yours you mount the disk on the other pc as secondary disk. If the desk it is not broken, you can restore your data. My two cents. :)
Oh yes "... never forget the three rules of information technology:
1. backup
2. backup
3. backup"
These were the words of our tutor in "data security" :)
Your "Backup"-Drive is a good idea. Try to get yourself a knoppix-cd. This is a small system you can boot from in case of a failure and so you can copy your data from the "Desktop" to your backup-harddrive.
I think the idea about the mac is a good one, too. My girlfriend has an ibook and she had no problems till now. I'm IT-Engineer and I think I know what I'm talking about when I tell you, that the best system to buy, if you don't want to engage yourself with the specific technology of a personal computer, is macos ;) ... this is of course my opinion (don't want to start a flame-war *gg*)
But it's expensive :(
Nevertheless I hope your PC will run a long, long time to help you make more of your fantastic pictures. Maybe one day one of your clients will donate an iMac for your fantastic work ;)
I ordered a new iMac 24" today :) http://www.apple.com/imac/ It`s time for my old PC to go into retirement :D
You need a mac!
Ouch! That's rotten--and something I continually worry about, as a photographer. Oh sure, I backup...to DVDs, as well as to an external hard drive, but I know that for the best protection, I need to be storing a copy of everything off site, as well (in case of fire)...but I don't do that yet. (Yeah, I'm in IT, so I'm a little obsessed with disaster recovery. ;))
Using an external hard drive, as many here have suggested is a great idea, but another thing that can be done very easily is to add a second hard drive to your PC, and store all your files on that, instead of on your C: drive. When a problem occurs, it is usually with the drive that holds your OS and programs--since that's where you're constantly making changes to a fragile balance--loading new things, critical updates, etc. A "data drive's" biggest need is being regularly defragged, for faster performance.
It has the added advantage of being something you can easily remove, and put in a NEW PC, when your old one finally bites the dust--the data will still be there, no tedious booting to a DOS prompt, and trying to copy the data off a dying drive.
(And, as an aside...if you're not using a third separate hard drive as a scratch disk for Photoshop, you're not getting the best performance out of it. In an ideal world, your PC should have your OS and programs on one drive...you should have a second drive that is nothing but a scratch disk for PS (which can also function as an emergency place to move files, if you need to), and then a third drive that is nothing but data--all your photos, your music, your personal files.
A new, 500gb hard drive will cost you about $70, here in the US...and you could have someone install it for you for another $50, if you don't have any geeky friends who'll do it for free...
:)
Because you still use a PC....please buy a Mac!!!! ;-)
"think different"
Ciao!!!
thats what you get for using a pc :P!
I used to use my pc for photo editing and I look back now and wonder how I didn't throw the thing through the window! its so slow! and from the sounds of it its a higher spec than yours!
If your serious about design/photography I'd consider investing in a mac - their just so much more intuitive and graphically minded!
"Get a Mac" ^^
No, seriously I sooooo agree with you Lara. Computers are so wonderful tools...when they work. It's really annoying when they go wrong, especially when you don't even now why. Hotlines are useless most of the time and people you are talking with sound to be incompetent morons.
However, I hope you won't loose to much time to edit your photos AGAIN :)
Keep on doing a soooo wonderful work and congratulation on passing your first year at uni (yeah I'm a little bit late ^^).
alick - i have a macbook, an old one, but its too slow. i would like a large fast mac, but storing files etc are just easy for me on a PC.
everyone mentions a mac, i would LOVE one but the one id want for what i would use it for, needs to be incredibly fast and id need a large screen, they cost quite a bit more than pcs, like £1,000+ this for me right now is totally out of my price range. oh how i wish someone could donate one my way!
Hey Lara... hahah i understand your wish... it happened to me too time ago, and it was so annoing, and i lost a lot of things too... when the tecnique man told me i'd lost some pictures, and graphic works i just wanted to screaaam!! hahah then... now i'm still alive, without some works, that fortunatelly was hosted on DeviantArt!!! :D
Good Luck!
I really know your problem. I've had problems with PCs and laptops all the time. And things like that always happen in periods when you've got a lot of work to do, I know.
I bought myself an imac a couple of weeks ago. We use macs in college so that's why I decided to buy one as well. They're much more reliable and much easier to do backups with. I never regretted the step to mac. You would have to find someone who has the adobe programs for mac, like someone from my class did for me :).
It is an investment but it's really worth it. I'm not pro certain brands (I hate it when the nikon-canon discussions start), yet I'm certainly convinced on the way apple works.
Much love!
x
oh and don't buy a macbook: they ask too much money for one while an imac is much cheaper while having more stuff in it.
I know: photography is a b**** when you think of the money. But buying an imac (I have the cheapest one but I asked a 4 Gig ram "work-memory") will get you going for many years, more than with a decent, new PC.
Try to save for it... you don't need insurance then and you really don't need an anti-virus because their are little viruses for mac... things like that makes it cheaper.
i have changed to macs and i am soooo happy!
mac may be easy and cheapper but you as photographer should know that its best to buy something a little bit better than a cheap crappy thing like?
you've even mentioned some posts ago that you didn't understand how could somebody buy a photoshoot from a non creative company and terrible photos right? the same goes with a mac, it is hard at first but then you see it better. :DD and they have some students discount!
Good luck
Get a Mac, it will change your world!
<3
as a photographer/graphic designer, i can't stress enough how much a mac would just change your world. You'll never look back!
I'd say get a mac. (:
It'll handle all those programs and whatnot much better, but that's just me.
ahhh i can't afford a mac people LOL i just enough coverm y living costs with my paid work xx
Oh, thats so horrible thing to loose some of your edited pics!
and hell yeah, PCs sometime so annoying...but be strong girl!
Im sure Ant knows a lil bit more about PC than you...boy are more technically minded:)Cause Ihave no idea about technic side of it..haha
so maybe he'll help you!
xoxo
I could help you but too late. Just you should load your pc on DOS format and use dos commands (old style;), then you could save your file without using windows.
Feel free to ask me anything if you have problem about your pc. You can get my mail from Anniken =)
Engin
you know what I used to have so many problems like that i got fed up of pc world saying restore it all the time so i have 4 hard drives and several internet sites to back up my photo's. plus now i pretty much know everything there is to know about computers. the funny thing is is that it would have been really easy for them to retrieve the info off you drive reinstall windows and get your pc back to exactly the wasy it was before.
You could get a Mac, but they are harder to fix if they break. I work tech support where there are several dozen Macs. They break and are next to impossible to fix, if you get a Mac, please get the external hard disk and use more than just Time Machine to back up. Copy your image directory to a location on your disk, and please have a professional set up a redundant back up disk. Both will be worth it to you in the long run, as in a sufficiently long time-line all hard disks fail.
get a mac and a good backup harddisk to use timemachine
"Lara Jade said...
ahhh i can't afford a mac people LOL i just enough coverm y living costs with my paid work xx"
ahhh!!! my PC time is over and over and lost in night times....
didn't you try to have a look on the refurb store of Apple? real bargains there
For example I had my MacPro for 1370£ instead of 2020£ and it's a new one. And this process is the same with MacBook, MacBook pro and else....
And with Mac you let Time Machine running alone and all your internal HD is saved on your external HD everyday, without doing anything.
As I desperatly lost soem of your work years ago I chose this solution.
keep smiling and be good!
//////////////////
i think u should get a mac ;)
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