Backing Up Catalogs

[wicksguy]

Try as I might I can't get the incremental backup to work. I keep loading the prior backup disk and either nothing happens or Elements 3 locks up.

Would it be simpler to use a burning program through Windows XP to do the backing up? Would I lose any tag info (or other data) by using this route as contrasted to using the burner inside of Photo Elements 3? If so, am I doomed to forever having to do the backups from scratch (that is, all the images of which I expect there will be ultimately 5 to 10 thousand).

Advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

Wicksguy

[MikeH]

Wicksguy,

What media are you using for the backup?

Mike

[wicksguy]

Mike - Thanks a million for answering. I am using CD-R disks with the Elements 3 back-up burner. (The general burning software is Roxio Easy Creator 5 packed with my Dell XP machine which is a couple years old.)

Elaborating on the incremental backup(which I've tried at least 15 times since I first bought Photo Album ) - whenever I load either of the CD's (full backup) from the last backup the software then (Photo Album, Photo Album II and now Elements 3) at the prompt doesn't recognize I've installed a disk (either disk 1 or disk 2) from the last backup. It then will give several prompt windows which I try to respond to but somehow my responses result in the software locking and I have to use Cont-Alt-Delete to get out of Elements III.

I have used the Roxio program to duplicate "full backup" disks in the past however and the images seem fine. As a work-around it seems it would be easy enough to use the Windows copy command to simply copy the "Adobe" folder in "My Pictures" to CD's but the uncertainty for me is what would happen if I had to use such a disk(s) to restore my current 1500 or so images if the hard drive should crash and I had to reinstall Elements 3 with these Roxio disks;i.e., whether the tags (presuming they were also copied in this way) would migrate with the images and whether the catalog structure would display correctly.

Any comments would be very welcome.


Wicksguy

[Williebill]

I had the same problem but I was doing it wrong. Sounds as if you may be too. PSE3 asks you to put in any CD from your catalog backup. The purpose of this is to identify your catalog only. It will not add new incremental images to this CD (as I thought it would and as I think it should instead of wasting CD space). Rather, once it identifies your catalog it will ask you to put in a new CD and it will write your incremental backup to this new CD. Like before, once it copies the images for your incremental backup it finalizes the CD and you must go through the same process the next time you want to make an incremental backup.

In my mind this is a big waste of CD's if you aren't backing up many images. The best way to work around this is to keep putting new images in a seperate folder and don't make an incremental backup until you have enough to almost fill a CD. Then after backup, you can move the images to other folders if you really want too.

What Adobe calls an incremental backup is really misleading as most of us think of incremental backups. I'll bet Adobe will fix this problem sometime as it is a complete waste of CD's and worst yet, it creates a CD storage problem.

I am about ready to buy an external hard drive to back up my images. It's much faster, safer, and more efficient. I'm thinking of doing this for another reason too. I'm hearing and reading that it appears the typical life of CD's are between 2 and 10 years (and DVD's may be worse). I feel an external hard drive may be the best answer. I haven't done it yet but a friend has and it works great and if you have the right external drive, they can make incremental backups. Not sure yet if this will retain PSE3 catalog tag information in the hard drive. But even if it doesn't that is OK as we only make a backup for emergencys and we could always retag again if need be. Barring a complete crash and loss of data in the computer the tags will always be in the computer. Another advantage of an external drive is that if the "worst" happens to your computer the images are always safe on the external hard drive. For what ever all of this is worth, this is my opinion and what I am in the process of doing. Good luck. :D

[wicksguy]

Williebill - Thanks a million for your complete and clear explanation in dealing with Elements 3 backups. I have printed it out and will add it to my "Classroom in A Book" I have on the same software. I also had thought of using an external hard drive for the backup medium instead of disks for the very reasons you suggest.

At present I have about recorded about 1300 images but will probably wind up with more than 4,000 before I'm done scanning mostly 50 years of family history. I'll keep looking at whether the PSE3 tag info can be protected. Since I use a system of repetitive tags (as children grew up and created their own families for instance) I would like to avoid having to do the tagging all over again. (This is important because I plan to distribute my backups to my children with the notion of having a graphic form of genealogy available to several generations for them to add onto if they wish.) At present a few of my images go back to the early 1900's. Of course, as you point out, backup media are not perpetual nor, necessarily, is PSE3. In the end, all there might be left will be the JPEG's in one archive or another - and posterity will have to figure out who everybody was.

Again many thanks - your insights were very valuable and I appreciate getting them.

Wicksguy