Bob, thanks for this time saving tip. I've used Irfanview from the very beginning, used it on the first photo I ever took...great little fixer. But, I've always resized just one photo at a time....didn't know about "batching"....gosh, what a time saver. I also use another little online "freebie" for photo editing since I don't have a program like Corel or Photoshop. Its called Photofiltre (from a French firm I believe). I downloaded from their site and it has some pretty good little features. Those are the only editing programs I have and they both do a decent job. I resize with Irfanview, save the pix, and use Photofiltre for sharpening, contrast and any other little fixes I might need to do. It has a number of filters that you can use too. I usually save my pix at 20 to 25 percent compression so as not to lose too much resolution. I almost never save a photo at more than 1600 x 1200 pixels unless I'm going to have that particular pic printed.....then I don't resize until after printing and then usually store them at less than that...usually about 800 x 600. Bob, thanks for the heads up on batching.....this is really going to save a lot of time..... ~Kathy~

candler, Back in the Win 95 era I bought a flat bed UMAX scanner. Really a good unit and came with Adobe Photo. The UMAX wouldn't work on the 98 system and I went through a couple scanners and ended up with an Epson 2480. In the meantime, I had I purchased Abobe Photo Delux Home Edition 4. It is the best of 4 or 5 software imaging packages I've tried. I finished scanning black and white family photos for the years 1916 to 1966 just before Christmas. Not really difficult, just time consuming. If you spend a little time learning your software you'll be surprized what it can do. For example, half of a B&W photo is in shade. So, with your image software you trace the shaded portion to define the working area and then begin to lighten and increase the contrast until it matches or comes close to the unshaded area. Creases in the photo can be overpainted with the clone function. Select the color or pattern at the crease and use that to paint over the crease. And the list goes on. It is astounding what can be done. Some will tell you that if the detail is not in the photo then there's nothing that can be done to enhance it. Don't believe it. I have copied eyes from one photo and pasted into another; change portions of the background that contain farm equipment or the neighbors dog. Get a decent scanner with a decent speed. Nothing is so frustrating as waiting for the thing to do what its supposed to do. Use the image software that comes with it and if it won't do what I've described, go to plan B. Hang in there. Its a wonderful project you're starting. Bob Central Arizona.

When you start repairing your photos create a large file when scanning so you have a good quality picture to start with. I like mine to be 2 or 3 megabytes and saved as bmp (bitmap) which is far better than saving as jpg. Also create a second file, I like to add a number behind a name or a letter if the photo has a numeric title for the second file. This keeps them together when you search. The reason for creating the second file (or even a third and fourth) is that the first is always available if you mess up or are not quite as happy as you might be. As Bob suggests there is a learning curve with photo editing, it can be challenging. But if you keep at it the task can be very rewarding. I use Corel PhotoPaint 11

As it happens, things have changed. The technician Dell sent came with the replacement hard drive (with pre-installed XP and drivers). He installed it - booted - and the same hard drive warning occurred. Turns out it was my second internal hard drive (that I use for data) that was going bad. It was a good thing I already had the 2TB replacement. So he put the 2TB drive in - returned my original hard drive - and all functioned well - no hard drive error messages. Now I do have work ahead of me - but this changes the nature of it. Much better scenario - but still requires thinking through. There are probably just a few video files on the second internal hard drive that I don't have copies of. I think they're still accessible - so I will either get a docking station - or better yet an enclosure (since I will need one anyway - as I'll describe later) to put it in - and see if I can transfer those video files to my new 2TB internal drive. I think it makes sense to test that drive to see what's wrong with it - if it's repairable by Windows XP (I think if I run chkdsk there are possibilities to repair some damage?). Should I do this? Or are there other methods to safely test out the health of my hard drive? It is also a Western Digital. The timing of the hard drive failure is now making more sense. I had spent the previous weekend backing up lots of data files onto this second internal 1.5 TB hard drive. I think some of those transferred Tivo files might be problematic. (I say that for 2 reasons - when I've tried to defrag the hard drive, I recall a few files that couldn't be defragged - and while it was hard to see the path, I think they were the Tivo videos. Also, there were a few Tivo videos that failed to work properly when I tried to run VideoRedo to remove commercials. Some just seemed to be bad files - of course, I don't recall which those ones were - but it makes me wonder if it's the sources of the problem on that second hard drive.) Next step is call Dell - I bought that second hard drive from them 1 1/2 yrs ago. It has a 3 yr warranty. I'm not sure if the warranty will be honored by Dell or Western Digital (the brand of drive). So I figure I'll be getting a replacement 1.5 TB hard drive - which I can either install internally - use it as program drive or data drive. I can use the original 500GB drive externally. Or maybe I should keep it the way it is now. Original 500GB internal hard drive, second 2 TB internal hard drive - and put the replacement 1.5 TB hard drive in an enclosure and use for back-ups. One reason I'd like to use the 2TB drive as a program/boot drive (or master drive - I'm not sure of the language) is bc. it's supposed to be a faster drive - Western Digital Black Caviar 2TB drive - 7200rpm and 64MB Cache that was a bit pricier, but I thought it was worth it for quality and speed. It's this one: http://www.amazon.co...ref=oss_product (although I paid less than the price listed online) I'm new enough at all this that I don't understand everything about hard drive speed. I think that a larger drive can potentially slow things down a bit as it has to work to see date over a larger area/amount of data - but that the 7200rpm and 64MB cache will offer more speed - and the reviews suggest this thing is fast. I'd love any guidance in weighing these factors as I decide which to make the primary drive. I also want to clarify what to do with this drive. I don't know how to partition. And if I did, how large a partition should I create on this 2TB drive - if it were to hold the operating systems and programs? I don't know how much room that takes - and how to be sure to take the appropriate sections of my original drive to place into this partition. I can figure out what size each portion of my original hard drive is? I just don't know which folders go into the partition for programs/software? I don't want to leave any out - and I'm concerned I will miss some folders bc. I do not recognize what they are. If I partition the drive, I gather I don't clone it - but do it in sections. I also don't know if I should format it first. Or partition first. Disk management is fairly new to me although I did format a couple of drives. I didn't get into partitions and copying from one drive to another. Does it make sense to use this 2TB drive (which I bought for it's speed and good functioning) as the main drive? If so, I don't know the order of operations? Clone my original drive to this drive? Format and partition first (in which case I'll need to know how to get the proper system files vs. data files into the right partitions). I think I know that if I make this 2TB the master, I have to either switch the cables - but since I think they won't stretch to the second hard drive bay, I'll probably have to swap them. I am so relieved not to have lost my original drive. Although it consumed the better part of last weekend, I did learn plenty - and feel more confident cutting my "recovery" teeth on recovering data from the bad second drive which only has some video at stake. Just as a reminder my original drive has about 350GB data. Thanks everyone. Lynn. PS - I did learn a couple of important things from this technician. First, he updated the bios in my computer (which was several versions old). And he told me where to go to update the bios on my daughter's computer. That was useful. It's a question I've had for a while when I see people on this forum ask whether someone has updated their bios.