Certainly, not FF ...

[Betty Hiner]

... but I'm at a real loss.
I have loaded all my pictures onto my computer. So far so good. But now, with about 3000 pictures of "fine" resolution on it, the computer doesn't want to run at regular speed. I don't have any CD's to copy to ... plus, it would require 97 hundred, give or take, disks ... but do have 4.7GB, DVD's. Can I copy my pictures (believe the word should be "burn") to the DVD's? If so, is the process similar to the burning to CD's?
A computer geek I'm not!! Help?
Betty

[ranchwife]

Yes, you can burn your pics to a DVD provided that your CD/DVD burner can burn to a DVD, and the process is the same. CD's only have 700 MB of space, while DVD's have 4.7 GB of space. I stopped burning to CD's once I got my new 12 megapixel camera because it was only capable of holdind about 100-200 pics. I only use DVD's now and am much happier with being able to burn multiple picture files. Make sure you get DVD that are rewritable so that you can burn pics onto the DVD at multiple settings.

[Scooter]

Hi Betty,
First off, I'm not sure why having pictures on the hard drive would slow up the operating speed of the computer. Maybe restarting the system may get things back to where they were.
Anyway, yes you can burn them to DVD. This is an excellent idea. It will give you piece of mind, so if your hard drive crashes, you will have copies. Assuming you have a DVD writer, you should have software that will allow you to do it in similar fashion to burning a CD. However, I'm not well versed enough to guide you through it via the bulletin board. If you have a friend or relative who can sit down next to you and guide you through it, you will become an expert at it in no time. Now, what I do, is back up my pictures to CD and keep them at work so if anything should happen at home, I have copies stored safely somewhere else. I also use an external hard drive to back up copies of pictures and documents. The nice thing is it does it automatically every day. Had the hard drive crash a couple of months ago and I was glad I had the irreplacable pictures of my family safely backed up. Storage is cheap, having to send out a hard drive to have data recovered is not.
Good luck, Tom.

[Brian Moffitt]

Betty,

As others have noted burning your images to DVD is a perfect solution. I'm pushing more than 10,000 images on my desktop system and like others I burn them to DVD on a regular schedule. The DVDs are then taken to the bank and go in the safe deposit box should the unthinkable ever happen. In addition I backup my system to an external hard drive once a week as an added precaution (I'm an IT guy I have to think about "worst case scenarios").

Burning your images to DVD is really no different than burning them to CD. As others have noted you'll need a DVD burner drive (most computers sold in the last 2-3 years will have one), and the appropriate software. If your computer came with a DVD burner it probably came with the necessary software as well. If for some reason you don't have the right software a couple of options are Roxio Creator 2009 or Nero Ultra Edition 8. I use Roxio Creator 2008 at home and like it well enough. Nero Ultra Edition is a better product, but is more geared toward the "tech savy" whereas Roxio is geared toward ease of use rather than an all encompasing feature set (like Nero).

I've pretty much used everything out there so I'd be more than happy to walk you through the process via PM if you like.

Brian

[Panfisha]

If memory is the issue, use a flash drive. Its a little memory stick, and can be found really cheap anywhere. Heres an 8gb for 30$, which is a good deal!
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1185265539078

[Betty Hiner]

OK! ... Spent the past 5 hours burning pictures to DVD's! Gawd! What a process!! Did figure it out, but it wasn't pretty!!

Duh! Speed wasn't affected by the removal of the pics (Scooter is right!), but it made a difference to empty the cache!

If I can now make myself backup everything more regularly it shouldn't take near as much time, next time!

Thank you guys for your wonderful help!!

[Brad Williamson]

Betty,

I'm glad you've worked through the DVD burning. I've done a lot of that and have all my photos on numerous CD's and DVD's. I've never been comfortable with those little plastic discs though. I finally have some peace of mind since I started backing up on portable hard-drives (Mine is 175 G). They cost around a $100 (about 50 cents/gigabyte of storage), hold tons of photos and they are fast. I now have multiple copies of our photos and I am a happy guy. Who'd a thunk it that redundancy is so comforting? Several professional photographers, I know go this route (with much bigger drives, Terabyte size) and further back up their images "in the cloud" by paying for online storage space that also has multiple back-up servers...

BW

[Rob Goodwin]

[QUOTE=Betty Hiner;251263]

If I can now make myself backup everything more regularly it shouldn't take near as much time, next time!

Hi guys:

My previous background was 35 years in data management, mostly for large data centers. However, with all my knowledge, I rarely backed up my own notebook which contains most of my life.

A few months back I read in a trade forum about a backup system which I implemented and works wonderfully, reliably, afford ably, and easily.

The software is Acronis True Image Home 11.0. It is available on Amazon for $30 some dollars. I also bought a Seagate 750 gig external USB drive for $199.00 which I put in a $30 external case.

The software directs you to make a mirror image backup of your operating system on the external drive in case your computer completely crashes. You can re-start your computer from this file.

Then on the same drive, you make a complete mirror back up of your entire system, including data, files, images, programs, settings, etc.

Then you set up an automated back up schedule (mine is 3:00 a.m. daily) which adds the incremental data in successive files to the complete mirror back up above.

When I leave home such as going to the Lowell, ID FI, I just took the laptop. When I returned 5 days later and plugged the drive back into the USB port it automatically backed up all the changes since the last incremental back up.

I haven't had to restore anything as of yet, but the documentation says it is lightening quick and reliable.

My previous fears with computers or operating systems crashing is that you lose all of your programs and settings. I don't always have my source discs of programs and have had to re-purchase many of them. The Acronis software totally solves the problem.

I am now secure that my computing system, programs, settings, and data are all retrievable for about the cost of reel and line.

Good Luck

Rob Goodwin

[TyroneFly]

Hi Betty,

I hope you labeled your disk well or it will be a pain finding the pics you want sometime down the road. Here is a link to freeware for cleaning up your registry and temp files http://www.ccleaner.com/download. Its CCleaner. Great program. My brother who is an IT guy at Sutter Health turned me onto it years ago.

Select the download from FileHippo.com. From there it will walk you through the download process. Be sure after you run the analysis under Registry to select 'yes' when it prompts you to save a backup. After the backup, run the 'fix problem'. You will be amazed at how much faster your computer will run. Be forwarned that all of your usernames and passcodes will have to be re-entered as these registries have been cleared. You can deselect certain cleanup criteria so you don't have to go through the hassle of typing in your user name and passcode, especially those you may have forgotten.

Hope this helps.

[Big Bad Wulff]

I downloaded Windows Live OneCare and let it "do it's thing". Things seem much better on my computer now.