Hard Drive almost full

[DougSr]

Ok my computer is almost full and most if not all of the files are from the catalog. Can I save them onto a backup external hd that I have with the catalog backup or do I need to save the pictures in a separate file(s)?

[tmax]

You should be able to store the photos on an external drive (just treat it like another directory), or you may want to experiment with the next generation of thumb sized USP drives called U3 drives. I was reading an article in the Sunday, October 21, 2007, Sacramento Bee (http://www.sacbee.com/travel/story/439853.html) by Janet Fullwood entitled "Take It With You: Take the drive, leave the laptop" which said "Just plug it into any PC and up comes your wallpaper, your preferences, your photos, your music and whatever other U3-compliant applications you choose to install on the drive."

I have never, ever tried one of those devices (reportedly retailing between $99 and $149, and no Mac version is yet available), but I don't know why those type of drives would not be a boon to those of us who hear complaints about the size of our photo files from those who are supposed to love us:p

I hope this info helps.

tmax

[Juergen D]

Ok my computer is almost full and most if not all of the files are from the catalog. Can I save them onto a backup external hd that I have with the catalog backup or do I need to save the pictures in a separate file(s)?
Doug,
Please clarify your present status. Did you use the PSE (which version?) Backup utility to backup your files to your external HD? How large is the EHD? How large is the backup? I suppose you eventually want to delete the pictures from your main hard drive.

Juergen

[DougSr]

Backup is 160gigs
Laptop is 60 gig.
I have backed up my photos both as just files, no PSE backup and, as I enter them into the catalog on PSE 5. I am backing up into the EHD using PSE5 also.

[NickLewis]

Doug,

You can indeed move the image files onto the EHD, but bear in mind that if you have both your primary image files and your backup on the same physical hard drive, you then have no protection against that hard drive failing.

Nick

[Juergen D]

If you are using the Organizer and have your pictures tagged, the backups you have now on the EHD will not be recognized by the Organizer. Of course, they are valid backups that can be edited.

You have two choices. One is to move the pictures from the laptop to the EHD, the other is to use PSE's Backup/Restore utility to transfer them to the EHD and subsequently delete them from the laptop.

If you decide to go the moving path, look in the Organizer Help for Moving Photos to CD or DVD, which applies to an EHD as well. Otherwise check Help for 'To back up a catalog to a CD, DVD, or hard drive' and 'To restore a catalog to a previous version'. In either case you will have the same pictures twice on your EHD, your original backups and the ones you moved.

Juergen

[DougSr]

I have been saving the files outside of Elements so that I have a backup of them and so that I can prevent duplicates. Of course I should have been more diligent in my backups to prevent that but now with Organizer I should be able to prune it down.

[DougSr]

OK I tried to do an incremental backup with the new files and it is giving me tons of trouble. it wants to reconnect first with the files I already backed up and it will not reconnect.

[Juergen D]

Please see my post above. An incremental backup is really not an option in this case. I realize that you do not want to have duplicates on your EHD, but I still suggest to use one of the methods that I suggested.

Once you are done with all of it, you can delete your old, 'manual' backups from the EHD, or, better yet, transfer those to CDs or DVD's.

Juergen

[NickLewis]

If you do any PSE backup, it will first do a "Missing Files Check" to ensure every entry in your catalog is properly linked to its photo file. This happens whether you want to do a full or an incremental backup. It's essential, because otherwise your backup won't be complete. Any files that it has problems with will need to be reconnected.

I don't understand why the files you previously backed up have become disconnected. Or why PSE can't reconnect. Did you move the originals in some way when you did the backing up?

Nick

[southcoastsounds]

Just out of interest, amazon are selling the Western Digital 250GB Passport V2 External USB 2.0 2.5" Hard Drive at a good price at the moment. This gives 250gb of space and simply plugs into your USB socket. I use it with the incremental backup on Elements.

Fantastic value - and I don't work for them, I just bought one.

Tom

[Juergen D]

Nick,
I understand that the files where moved outside of Elements (with Windows?)...

Juergen

[NickLewis]

Hi Juergen,

I thought Doug was just saying that he'd saved the files outside of Elements (as backups)? I didn't realise he'd moved the originals that the catalogue is referencing yet. I'm confused. :confused:

Doug - can you clarify what you've done, where your original photo files are and where your backup(s) are?

Nick

[Juergen D]

Nick,
Re-reading Doug's posts, it looks like he copied the files with Windows and backed them up with PSE5. However, since he is getting reconnecting issues, he may have deleted them from the internal HD.
If that is true, I would say, he needs to restore the backup from the EHD onto the same EHD, if he wants to keep the internal HD clear.

Juergen

[WayneS]

I’m also at the point of having to move several thousand pictures from my laptop hard drive to an external hard drive, and have been following the number of threads on the subject recently with great interest. Nick and Juergen have covered the subject very well. However, I do have one question, which I have not seen mentioned. When moving the pics to the external hard drive, through the organizer, does it automatically delete the files on the laptop, or do I have to do this myself, after the pictures are moved.
Thanks
Wayne

[Juergen D]

Hi Wayne,
When you move the files, they will be gone from their original location.

If you do it by dragging and dropping folders in the left pane, Organizer will not always display the thumbnails correctly. Quit and restart Organizer and everything will be in its proper place.

Juergen

[WayneS]

Juergen
Thanks very much, I just wasn't sure, but that clears it up. Most appreciated
Wayne

[DougSr]

I backed up the files both with windows and the organizer onto the EHD. However when I tried an incremental backup it would not allow it to be backed up into the same path. Is that my problem? Yes I did not read the help files completely and that is my laziness. I have since read them and still cannot figure out why I cannot do what I want to do. I have these pictures doubly backed up and want to use the organizer to of course organize and get rid of the duplicates but if I cannot do incremental backups to an EHD why bother. I mean I can do it to DVD-RWs but would rather save the small amount of money and them for other more important things. Yeah I am a cheapskate. I will admit that when I made my original backup I deleted some of the files on the IHD to make some room and maybe regain some speed with my computer. Once restoring the backups I have all these files back and once again my computer is slow.

[NickLewis]

Doug,

The instructions on how to perform an incremental backup are not terribly clear. I've written some instructions in this post (http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/forum/showpost.php?p=266637&postcount=3) that should explain how to do it. I have had no difficulty doing incremental backups to an EHD using this procedure. However, some people have had considerable difficulty making incremental backups to DVD, so I wouldn't recommend that route.

As you deleted files off the IHD, I'm not sure you understand what Organiser does. It just catalogs your files, keeping a record of where they are and how you've tagged them, etc. It doesn't copy them into itself. The pictures you see in Organiser are not your photo files, just smaller "thumbnail" copies of them. So you shouldn't delete the files that you have imported into Organiser. Fortunately, in your case, you had backups you could restore, otherwise the photos would be gone.

The other consequence of this is the issue I raised earlier but that you didn't respond to. If you move your photo files to the EHD, and also keep a backup on it, you will have no protection against that EHD failing, being stolen or destroyed in a fire, say. There will be no copies of your photos on the IHD. All your backup will be protecting you against is accidental deletion or corruption of files. Obviously you need to get your files off the laptop, since you're overcrowding your drive, and that situation will only get worse. So to be fully protected, you need to keep a backup on DVDs or preferably another EHD, which is easier and more reliable.

Nick

[DougSr]

Well I guess I had get a bigger EHD and preferably a bigger IHD for one of my computers. Of course I could skip both and get a bigger and better computer yet keep the backups. I really love the way the Adobe Photodownloader works. I am thinking about backing up the EHD onto DVD-RW and putting all the files onto my cards and letting it somewhat organize my files then putting them back onto the EHD in that manner, time consuming I know and not good to keep on moving JPGs but in that way I should get rid of duplicates and copyright the pictures also. I need to do this soon though. I thank you for the information. I very much appreciate all the help.