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backing up pictures

15 years ago

My husband must have thousands of pictures on his old XP machine. I worry he will loose them all if his computer dies. He's less computer literate than I am but I don't know a thing about backing up pictures and never use his computer.

He uses various photo editing programs, PS Elements, MS Picture IT and a few others. I believe he downloads his pictures directly into these programs. I would assume they are on his hard-drive in the original form (not edited)?? I don't think he saves any of them except within the programs. Where are they saved?

If I run an external hard-drive to back up, does it back up the photos on these programs or only the saved photos? I'm most interested in the original photos not the edited versions.

I hope this makes sense.

Jane

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Comments (6)

bob414
15 years ago
In PS Elements 4.0 you can open the organizer which probably has imported all the pictures then click file > backup and choose the preferred option.
owbist
15 years ago
This is why I never allow programs to dictate where I save stuff, I place them all in the same master folder in many sub folders.

However if I were you Jane I would use the search feature looking for *.bmp then *.jpg After each search I would click on the top one to highlight it, hold down the 'Shift' button and tap the End button to highlight everything. Then right click on the list and click copy. Open Windows Explorer, create a folder on the external drive and paste into it. Repeat for the other file type. Now at least you have everything saved.

The alternative would be to use Windows Explorer and look through for any photo editing software, click the plus sign beside each and look for a folder with the photos and copy to the external. Do not forget the My pictures folder inside My Documents.
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Some versions of windows, maybe its personal settings at set up.. i forget but.... sometimes what appears to the folders contained in Documents are not always actual folders containing files but are magical fake folders called 'Junctions' . They work and act like a folder to us humans, but in actuality they are only special access links to the folder that contains the files which are elsewhere in a real folder. I backed up my documents in vista or maybe xp a long time ago and learned that lesson.... did it right before a reinstall and lost all my pictures because I had forgotten ... Pictures folder in the documents was a junction(imaginary folder)... along with I think the music & videos too. To properly know what is in Documents,, look in your c;\users path. Access will be denied to the junctions there which will have the shortcut arrow on the folders.
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susieq07
15 years ago
Out them on a flash drive, for safe keeping..or send to a free online storage box most offer 50G free
jane__ny
Original Author
15 years ago
They seem to have their own extensions. That tells me that the photos can't be opened without using that program. I tried copying a few on a flash and tried to open them on my machine. I get the 'Windows doesn't know what to open this with.'

I'm so annoyed at my husband.I don't know if those file extensions can be changed and there are just too many to do.

Thanks,
Jane
bob414
15 years ago
What is the file extension? It may be that you can use BatchConvert/Rename in Irfanview to convert large batches at a time to the file type of your choice.
owbist
15 years ago
Jane you do not want to change those extensions necessarily. Although as Bob notes it is easy to do in Irfanview - depending on how many we might be talking about here of course. What are some of the extensions?

But I agree you have a formidable task trying to find all of them and save to your external drive. One major drawback with my notion in my post earlier is that it will find every graphic used on splash screens, icons etc for every program on the computer which is a total waste of time.

Any bmp, jpg, tif, eps, gif and one or two others should be able to be opened by almost all graphics programs.

Why not click Start/All programs and write down all the graphics programs you see. Then open Windows Explorer ( right click Start, click Explore), look down the left side for 'Program Files'. Click the plus sign beside Program Files and all the sub folders appear. Find each graphics program, click the p;us sign and look for a folder where the photos might be stored.

As you find each folder right click, click Copy, highlight your external drive by right clicking on it and click Paste.

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