loosing my pics?

[Alexandra]

Ok, I really don't like what's happening and I need all your helps on this, guys!

Here: my computer (the one I have all my pics on) is drop dead and my dad will probably format it within a week. I don't have a back-up folder and can't create one cause I just can't access any data.
Most of my "photography" pics are on Photobucket and on my own site, so I was wondering if I could just load'em back by simply re-saving them (from the sites) on my computer when it gets formated. Does photobucket really keep the pics in a database so they don't need a sorce from my PC anymore?

Help me pleeeease!

 

[Digital Matt]

Photobucket keeps your photos stored on a server yes, but did you upload full res photos to photobucket? If not, you'll just be reloading websized pictures that aren't suitable for prints. I would try to get your full res photos from your hard drive before formatting it.

 

[Alexandra]

I have honestly no idea if they're full res, but i guess so.
the thing is that I can't even turn the computer on, cause if I could, i would just write my pics to a cd and that would be it...

 

[Digital Matt]

Did you resize them before uploading them to photobucket?

If you want to spend the money, you can remove the hard drive from the computer and have all the data taken off of it. There are firms that do that. I'm not sure how much it costs, but I'm sure it's not cheap.

 

[Chase]

Find a friend that is a computer geek and have them see what data they can get off your hard drive before you wipe it out.

 

[Alexandra]

Did you resize them before uploading them to photobucket?

nope, so i guess they're full res, right?

Find a friend that is a computer geek and have them see what data they can get off your hard drive before you wipe it out.

actualy my dad tried hacking my computer several times but because of the numerous block stuff he himslef installed on it, it gave nothing.

now, we're tryin to... ok, i don't know a damn about what we're tryin, but it's basically writing the pics to a cd without really turning the computer on, like with the windows installation cd or something. I don't get it, but my dad seems to know what he's doing, so i'll trust him cause i've no choice.

Thank you guys! :hug:

 

[stingray]

if you're reformatting coz of a virus or some such you could just take your HD out, put it in another computer connected as a slave and chuck the pictures on a disc... that way you don't have to worryabout viruses. (becaue of having put it as slave). Unless your harddrive is very old and has been used forever it physically should be alright. you only need to send it off to a salvaging company if the body is screwed. they take the disc itself out and run it in a different body, hard disc surgery basically, and that does cost money. good luck getting your pics, it's HORRIBLE when you lose stuff.

 

[suryad]

I dont think photobucket allows full res. I think it automatically chops it down to 512kb each pic. I could be wrong though.

 

[Alexandra]

anyways, thank you guys!
Now my pc's all clean, but actually my hard drive was divided in two parts, one of which was safe during formatting, so all my pics are ok. *relief*
Thank you so much guys for helping me out, I was really panicking badly... I dunno what i would've done without y'all
:hug::

 

[JohnMF]

that was lucky!

maybe consider getting yourself an external hard drive, just for extra security

 

[Kent Frost]

that was lucky!

maybe consider getting yourself an external hard drive, just for extra security

That just happened to me about 2 months ago. I lost everything on the C: Drive, but everything on the D: Drive was untouched (including my photos). So I went and got a 250GB Hard drive with a USB 2.0 enclosure. Everything goes on that HD, and if it fails and I lose my photos, I have it all backed up on DVD.

 

[Alexandra]

I was planning to get one next month I was also thinking of zipping all my stuff into archives and burn'em to cd's.

 

[Kent Frost]

Do you shoot a lot of photos? If so, I'd consider investing in a DVD burner. I just converted all my photo CDs to DVD about 2 days ago. I condensed them from about 65 CDs to 12 DVDs. Very space conserving.

Here's one on tigerdirect.com for about $42.
Click for details.

 

[Alexandra]

oh, i already have one. but thanks anyway!

 

[jcharcalla]

I store all my photos (close to 30gigs) on 2 hard drives at home plus an off site stack of DVD's. I could just be parinoid though. I'm planing to get a USB/Firewire drive enclosure to use for my offsite soon. It seems to me if the data is important you need at least 2 copies on 2 physically differnt drives.