You should be able to copy them from photobucket to your computer. If nothing else, navigate to the picture, right click and save.

The reason you don't see the extension is because of your Windows explorer settings. How you change that varies a bit between versions of windows.

Just to be on the safe side, log into Photobucket from another computer and make sure all your pictures are ok. It's likely just an extension setting.

It wouldn't be a bad idea, if you haven't already done so, to look at whatever files you backed up on your flash drive as well.

Good advice, I'll do that at work. I tried a few docs and they opened on the office machine. Different versions of Word but luckily I save most on the older setting. Mike thanks for the advice about the reg #'s. I sent off an email to Dell about that. They told me all their machines are shipped with recovery cd's. Mine didn't because its 3 yrs old and they started doing that 2 yrs ago. They can't do that for me now. Story of my life!

Very slow going with the pictures. I guess there's no hope for ITunes. Can't get the music to copy. Disk drive won't copy.

Story of my life!

Jane

So Dell didn't give you a recovery CD. How are you supposed to reinstall Windows? Is there a back-up partition on the drive? Do you have a Windows serial number?

one caution to using photo storage sites like photobucket you may not end up with your photo in the same size and resolution as it was originally from your camera. Were these pics you had taken with your camera and if so do you still have them on the memory card or did you remove them from the memory card when you put them on the pc?
I would check about the size they are saved on photobucket this would matter if you ever wanted to use one to print, they look fine on the pc but when printed if not in the original size and resolution they will not look very good.

If they did not provide a cd then it would seem there would have to be a recovery partition on the pc, do you have a C and D showing up in your drives? if so D is the recovery. They usually tell you to make a copy of the recovery to cd when you first get a new pc so you have an actual copy should you have a hard drive fail.

Rather than a photo storage site like photobucket you might want to look at a back up storage site like ADrive where you can move large batches and it will store any type of file, they provide 50Gig free. You can also store music files there.
http://www.adrive.com/

Here is a link that might be useful: adrive

I'm so confused I don't know what I'm doing. I thought I could use the CD from my husbands laptop to reinstall. How else could I? I have other CD's with XP but they don't have SP2. My husbands has sp2.

I don't know what you mean about a recovery partition. How would I know?

Raven, I couldn't find any photo sites for free. My Pics folder reads 12.7 GB. I signed up for a paid version of Photobucket because they say its unlimited. I never checked about resolution. I don't have the pictures on the cards anymore. Many photos are from 3 yrs ago.

I'm at work now, if someone could tell me how to check for that partition, I'll do it when I get back. Also, about the resolution. What to check? Maybe I should hire someone to handle all this. Its gotten beyond my knowledge.

Thanks,
Jane

If you only have 12.7 gig in that folder you can move the entire folder over to Adrive for free since they give you 50GB free and they make no changes to your files and have a batch transfer option.

to see if you have another partition you need to look under my computer and see if it shows only C or if it shows C and some other letter drive like D, if so then D is probably the recovery partition.
What is the model number of that Dell maybe we can look it up and find out what it had on it.

the sp2 or sp3 really does not matter those are just service packs and can be added on from windows updates, however if that cd from your husbands is not an actual windows cd and is instead a cd provided with his pc as a restore/recovery then it will not work on your pc.

If it is a real windows xp cd and is the same version of xp as yours as in xp home or xp pro then you could use it to re-install windows but you would have to use your windows keycode not the one with that cd your keycode should be somewhere on your pc case.
I am not familar with Dell and how they do theirs so maybe someone with a Dell can shed some light.

Dell should have provided a means of reinstalling Windows should some happen to your hard drive or you have a corrupted installation (as you do now). Since they didn't give you a CD, there should be separate partition on your hard drive that contains the necessary software. The partition should be viewable in Windows explorer as (usually) drive D (E should be your CD or DVD drive).

Once you're ready for the reinstall, call Dell. That part should be under warranty and they can walk you through the exact steps for your computer.

I want to thank Raven for the link to Adrive. Took me a while to figure out, had some problems...requires Java, which I have, but apparently wouldn't work. Tried downloading it again but got error messages that Windows Installer is shut off (or something to that affect). So I clicked around Adrive and suddenly it worked. Will take all night, as its slow, but hopefully I will have a safe back-up for the pictures.

I wonder how safe it is for documents. I'm tempted to upload some because I don't trust the flash drives. I had trouble opening many on my work computer but am hoping it is because they have different versions of Office. This has been the only 'bright spot' all week!

Fabulous site and great tool.

Thank you so much,
Jane

it is a good safe secure site Jane I use it also for my file storage and have no worries about it. Any online storage facility has to have safe guards in place and that is really all you can hope for.

Thank you again! This has solved the storage issue. I guess 'cloud computing' is the way to go in the future. I can't believe how much help this is.

You should be on salary with GW. You are so helpful to those of us who make stupid mistakes.

Jane

I am very glad to help Jane and happy you like Adrive I think it is a great service and amazing they give a whopping 50gig free space. I think cloud computing will become more and more utilized in many aspects, it sure makes it easier to access our stuff from multiple locations and computers and I suspect theirs are less likely to crash and burn than a home pc, they have a lot of redundant protection in place.
Just do not lose your password LOL

Its amazing. I looked around and couldn't find anything free for that amount of space. I signed up for a paid account with Photobucket for nothing! I've used Photobucket for years free, but I needed more space so decided to pay for unlimited.

You alerted me to the possibility that the resolution wouldn't be the same and that got me worried.

Adrive solved that problem. Now I'm stuck with Photobucket, which is okay and I'll cancel the paid version at the end of the subscription.

Jane

Jane,

Just reading a couple of things on Photobucket:

• Free accounts: You ONLY have web-size images.

• Pro accounts: You have web-size images and your ORIGINAL size images (which may be high resolution). Your account displays the web-size images, and your original image of up to 20MB is saved âÂÂbehind the scenesâ as a high-resolution image, which you can view or download at any time. See the "High resolution images" section in Pro Accounts for details.

Jane,

What I meant to add was that if you have a paid (Pro?) account there is the option to save the images in their original resolution.

that is good info and would be important to me because saving them in full resolution is really the way to go in case you ever want to print them. I have never dealt with anything but the free version of photobucket, and it is not my fave, I actually like imageshack better for a freebie one.

I found Adrive a few years ago, I was using another site but it was going to go to pay only and that is when I started looking around for options, Adrive was the best one for me.

Thanks Mike. I saw that too but didn't really understand what resolution to pick. They give choices. I know nothing about photos. The photos on this broken computer are photos my husband took and since he must have a million photos, I'd never find them on his computer if I wanted to print or share them. So I copy some from his card onto my computer. Nothing really important, just memories I don't want to loose.

Raven, I'm a bit concerned about Adrive working properly. I can't upgrade Java or Flash because the installer doesn't work on this machine. Adrive appears to be uploading (takes hours) but I can't open any folders to see if anything is in them. When I click on a folder, it just changes the + to minus-. I'm not sure there's anything in the folders. How would I check? They state you need the most updated Java which is impossible here.

Jane

You ideally want to save the pictures in their native resolution or the largest resolution Photobucket offers if that resolution is smaller than the native resolution. Most modern digital cameras offer a resolution sufficient to make a good looking 4"x6". It's only if you want to make larger prints or blow up a section of an image that a higher resolution is important. Photobucket's web resolution is probably a bit low for making prints.

once you have them on Adrive have you tried accessing them from another computer that does have java to see if they look ok? It will take a while to upload a large number of files especially with the free mode, the paid version is faster of course.

Raven, I'm on my netbook now and went on Adrive I can see the various folders but nothing opens. I can't figure out how to see if anything is inside. There is a 'move to' button but when I click it it shows a directory. I don't know what directory that is. I was going to try to bring the folder to my netbook...not possible? How do I see if anythings inside the folder?

I think I'm way over my head! Jane

ok when I go to my Adrive account I see on the left side pane the directories with my various folders there, for example one folder is firefox bookmarks if I click on the folder on the left it will then show up in the right pane what is in that folder, I can then click on it in the right pane and view the individual contents.
one folder I have is for pictures of my computer I click on it in the left pane in the right pane the contents show then to view one of the picture files in there I just click on it and it opens the picture file.

YOu can also use the Navigation area at the very top on the left and choose My Files click that and it will show your files in the right pane continue to double click on those to view what it in those folders etc.

can do it either way. Let me know if that helps if not maybe I can grab a screen shot for you.

Thanks, I'll try it tomorrow. Was out of town and just got back. Needed a breather from the problems.

One other question, is there a site you would recommend for steps to take before reinstalling? I'm worried I don't have everything backed up. Can't find the folder with my Firefox bookmarks and passwords. From what I read, they are hidden somewhere. Followed FF directions and can't find them.

Thanks again,
Jane

for firefox you want to do an export of your bookmarks go to bookmarks up top then organize bookmarks click the import and backup option at the top then export html tell it where to put the file like on the desk top or if you can put a flash drive in tell it to put it on the flash drive that will have all your bookmarks in it. Actually if you have xmarks installed on the pc and have everything saved in xmarks which can save bookmarks, passwords, profile etc, then once you have it all new and re-installed just open your firefox and add xmarks to it and it will sync up with your xmarks folder online and voila bam everything is back as it was. Xmarks is the best way to go.

there are too many suggested guides to list for prior to reformatting just go to this search and look through a few.
Prior To Reformatting

Got x-marks installed (finally) and now have a zillion bookmarks. That's good because I can no longer get any of the drives to turn on. I'm just hoping the reinstall CD works. Still putting that off until I have a day to spend on it.

I cannot get into network connections. I guess that will have to be set up after install.

Thanks again,
Jane