I have all my photos stored on a harddrive some dated back to 2008 (some of my kids dad who has passed) and my son just accidentally dropped it in the dogs bowl. It was just in and out so I really, really hope that once it dries out I can get everything back.
Silly me for keeping everything in just one place, I should have had a second back up :(
A hard lesson, fingers crossed all is good.
You might get lucky, especially if there was no power going to it when it hit the water. My MIL dropped her DSLR in the river. After letting it fully dry out before attempting to turn it on, she has had no issues at all. Just be sure it is fully dry before attempting to use it. Any moisture in it when turned on will ruin it for sure. If you live in a dry/low humidity area, you might take Kelly's advice, but also set it in the window of your car so the sun can help evaporate the moisture.
@gareauk1 thanks Kelly, I haven't got any now but will get some in the morning. @aineo it wasn't plugged in so hopefully there is a better chance. thanks
I feel so stupid, will be buying another external tomorrow.
@mummarazzii try not to worry. in my experience, these things are almost always recoverable.
my mobile phone has been down the toilet and through an entire washing machine cycle, and has survived by being taken apart and left in a box of rice for a couple of days. as steve says, don't be tempted to test it before it's fully dry, as that burns up the insides (or something like that).
to be safe, i'd leave it drying for at least 3 days before plugging it in.
Even if it doesn't work, you can send it to a computer shop and they'll be able to open it and recover most of your data. This has happened to me before. I cried for ages. Hopefully everything will turn out ok. Fingers crossed for you!
I use two types of backups. All of my photos reside on two external hard drives. Those two external drives are then backed up to another external hard drive that is used for backup only. In addition, the two external drives are backed up online automatically in real time using LiveDrive. So basically, I have 3 copies of all data: 2 are local on external drives and one is online wherever LiveDrive has their data center.
Don't even try to plug it in. Any water or sediments remaining inside could cause damage. Even if you did plug it in and it worked, there's no guarantee it will continue working for long. If you really want the data on it without risking it, take it to a repair shop, and pay the cash to get it restored properly.
I agree fully with @gurry while you can do a home remedy, give it a few days in rice and then take it to the shop. Also for those extra special photos you may want to upload them onto a picasa web album or a cloud sho that they are in an extra place besides the external.
OHHH NOOO, that is so sad. I really hope you are able to recover all of your precious memories and work!
In your all's opinion... What exactly are the best places to back up??? I am quilty of not backing up at all and I know I need to get with it! Is picturetown a good place to back up and then just on CD's Please advise!
@shirljess I have it on my computer. I then have it on a tetra size external hard drive with all my other documents and music. I also have a smaller ehd for travelling, so photos and music are on that one.
I also use my picasa albums and upload them onto the web. I may not be able to blow them up to printable size for gift or sale from that option, but I always have the photo and the trigger for the memories.
A lot of people are using clouds where you can upload your stuff and it magically stores your files. I am a bit iffy on that but my parents were in computer security for years so I just do not trust it not being hacked. So I store it in several formats.
@shirljess I recommend backing up to an external drive and also backing up to an online service. I have unlimited online storage with LiveDrive. You definitely want more than one backup.
@munchkin84@smevvy@dishaparekh176@kannafoot@teeboy@gurry@brumbe@shirljess@kannafoot thank you all so much for you advice, ideas and commiserations.
I am feeling a little more poitive I will get it back :) @brumbe do you shoot in RAW? I find that having large files I can not store a lot on my computer. @kannafoot thanks Ron I will have a look at LiveDrive.
I do have some photos on photobucket, flickr and facebook but it is only about a 1/4...but it is something.
@shirljess I also back up to an external hd but only my raw files, anything thats edited stays in my iMac. I also store my raw files on there for a second back up. I could use iCloud but not really over comfortable with that so I leave it alone. I have Flickr and Facebook accounts but the photos on there are not great quality. Hopefully my ehd and IMac will be enough:-).
hope everything goes well lisa, although I would agree with @gurry and @brumbe . Get that data off that drive ASAP! If you do it yourself, quickly go out and get another external HDD and copy it over.
As for me, I had a similar situation where I was transferring data across to my new laptop and my old laptop HDD just died. Then my network drive where i keep my backups died. So now i do this (and Yes, I shoot in RAW)
1. Have the images on my laptop
2. Bought a 2 bay synology NAS and put 2 x 2TB hard disks in there (different brands) and set up in RAID 1 (full mirror)
3. Yet to come - buy another 2TB external HDD and once a month do a full copy from the NAS across to this, then take it offsite (in case my apartment goes up in flames)
Yes I suppose I could upload to the cloud but with 1TB of information, this would take forever potentially be quite costly
Overkill? possibly but like you when you're looking at the possibility of losing ALL your images for the past 10 years, you have to ask yourself what those memories are worth.... i guess my solution tells you what my answer was :)
I've just registered for dropbox.com. It's online storage. It gives you 2gb of free space and if you enlist more friends, it gives you 500mb for each one that registers - up to a total of 16gb. Might be worth a look.
I should also add, if you decide to have 2 backups as external, make sure that they are different brands of Hard disk inside. There's a few makes (the one i remember was the seagate 2TB drive) that just died after a certain date.
If there's a manufacturing fault in a batch of drives or even a design failure on a model, you'll negate the reason for having 2 backups
I have a pretty standard backup pattern. First, I always back up my internal hard drive with an external. I use OS X's Time Machine, so it's all pretty automatic.
Second, I store pictures on my internal drive until I can't stand to look at them anymore. From there, I dump them onto a different external hard drive. This also include my editing images, and not just my iPhoto or Lightroom libraries.
By doing this, I always have backups of everything on Time Machine, plus a failsafe for pictures (and other important stuff).
I shoot about 50% in RAW, so to maintain all of this, my internal is 320GB, and my externals are between 500GB and 1TB.
@mummarazzii I shoot about 50% of raw. I am reaching the point where editing is fun and all, but I like a bit more simple processing so the raw is not as necessary. It also depends on the photos I am taking. At a party and everyday randomness I shoot with my iphone or point and shoot so no raw for them. When I use my dslr I use raw more but not all the time.
My computer is in the shop today, and I may or may not get my files back Fortunately, it is only 10 days lost, but it should have been NONE! I know better. Yes, 2 backups would be best. I have an external hard drive and I use DVDs. Except, I got lazy, and of course, that is when the OS went kaput.
I do a monthly back-up to an external drive that's kept offsite, as well as a Time Machine back-up to an external drive. Once I finish the photo organizing project that I'm working on, I'm going to get another drive for offsite, so that I can do a rotating back-up with the one I already have.
Drop box is good too as a backup on another site. timemachine backs everything on computer several times a day for me to a large external disc. But an external site is a good idea and I use one too.
@brumbe That may not be enough. I had all mine backed up to a hard drive but about a week after the computer died so did the hard drive. I'm still retreiving files (and Yowza...today I found some old photos on a thumb drive) The lesson is...AT LEAST 2 back ups.
Maybe I'm weird. Ok, I already know that I am. Anyways........I treat memory cards like film. When they're full I store them. I don't delete them. I save them and buy new. I buy them when Amazon has good deals or whatever. Yes, I have an enormous collection of them. I hope they don't go bad. That's my back-up solution. I do realize that editing isn't saved on these. And that's ok with me.
I hope it'll be okay. I reckon you should back up 3 times! In our family both our back up server and our back up back up server have gone down this week. Dad's trying to fix them but at the moment I'm the only one who's not lost any work! If anyone wants a link to an online storage thingy, message me (every time you reccommend someone you gt extra storage space but you have to do it via email) :)
@mandyj92 I know some very successful pro photogs who do exactly that. However, for those like me who shoot up to 40GB per job and don't get paid $10000+ each time, it is very much an impossible solution. Flash cards do go bad from time to time, so unless you are using the absolute best, they can't be trusted any more than a run-of-the-mill external drive or CD. If it works for you, no harm in it - wish I could do the same for my originals.
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@aineo it wasn't plugged in so hopefully there is a better chance. thanks
I feel so stupid, will be buying another external tomorrow.
my mobile phone has been down the toilet and through an entire washing machine cycle, and has survived by being taken apart and left in a box of rice for a couple of days. as steve says, don't be tempted to test it before it's fully dry, as that burns up the insides (or something like that).
to be safe, i'd leave it drying for at least 3 days before plugging it in.
good luck!! xxx
OHHH NOOO, that is so sad. I really hope you are able to recover all of your precious memories and work!
In your all's opinion... What exactly are the best places to back up??? I am quilty of not backing up at all and I know I need to get with it! Is picturetown a good place to back up and then just on CD's Please advise!
I also use my picasa albums and upload them onto the web. I may not be able to blow them up to printable size for gift or sale from that option, but I always have the photo and the trigger for the memories.
A lot of people are using clouds where you can upload your stuff and it magically stores your files. I am a bit iffy on that but my parents were in computer security for years so I just do not trust it not being hacked. So I store it in several formats.
I am feeling a little more poitive I will get it back :)
@brumbe do you shoot in RAW? I find that having large files I can not store a lot on my computer.
@kannafoot thanks Ron I will have a look at LiveDrive.
I do have some photos on photobucket, flickr and facebook but it is only about a 1/4...but it is something.
As for me, I had a similar situation where I was transferring data across to my new laptop and my old laptop HDD just died. Then my network drive where i keep my backups died. So now i do this (and Yes, I shoot in RAW)
1. Have the images on my laptop
2. Bought a 2 bay synology NAS and put 2 x 2TB hard disks in there (different brands) and set up in RAID 1 (full mirror)
3. Yet to come - buy another 2TB external HDD and once a month do a full copy from the NAS across to this, then take it offsite (in case my apartment goes up in flames)
Yes I suppose I could upload to the cloud but with 1TB of information, this would take forever potentially be quite costly
Overkill? possibly but like you when you're looking at the possibility of losing ALL your images for the past 10 years, you have to ask yourself what those memories are worth.... i guess my solution tells you what my answer was :)
If there's a manufacturing fault in a batch of drives or even a design failure on a model, you'll negate the reason for having 2 backups
Second, I store pictures on my internal drive until I can't stand to look at them anymore. From there, I dump them onto a different external hard drive. This also include my editing images, and not just my iPhoto or Lightroom libraries.
By doing this, I always have backups of everything on Time Machine, plus a failsafe for pictures (and other important stuff).
I shoot about 50% in RAW, so to maintain all of this, my internal is 320GB, and my externals are between 500GB and 1TB.
Hope that helps.
@mummarazzii I hope it works for you, best to get some printed out into a photo album as well as backing them up. Good luck! xxx
So far so good.