Backing up to a CD/RW - Suggestions?

[owl_luvr]

Well, I finally took Barbara Brundage's suggestion & bought a CD/RW drive yesterday. Any suggestions on how best to back up a partitioned hard drive to it and (back on-topic) how best to use the CD/RW with PSE2?

Many thanks.

Owl

[Chuck Snyder]

Owl, one suggestion that's been made here in the past that caused me to
change my ways: CD-R discs are more reliable for archiving purposes than
CD-RW discs. Yes, you lose the ability to add on and write over, but if
they're truly being used to archive, that shouldn't be a big issue. A
compromise is to archive your originals on CD-R and back up your working
copies on CD-RW. I've gotten to the point where I just write everything to
CD-R, one CD-R (or sometimes more) per folder (I generate a new folder for
each day of shooting). If I've created a lot of new edited copies, I'll cut
a new CD-R and replace the obsolete one. Sure glad CD-R's are cheap....

Chuck

[BobHill]

Another advantage to CD-R over CD-RW is you don't have to format them in advance and the price today is certainly an advantage; almost throw away prices.

Just remember that CD files always are READ ONLY and you don't want to open them and try to work them while on the CD. Copy the file onto your hard drive, THEN change the attribute from Read Only there and work away.

Bob

[Brian Glogouski]

I never really had anything to add to this topic......until recently. I was using a CD-RW to backup everything of importance until one day I couldn't read files or copy files to it. I did manage to recover some files from the CD-RW and copied them to a CD-R. You can add to a CD-R with some software but once you save something that space is lost forever. I use a light version of Roxio Easy CD Creator and you can save files to a CD-R but not finalize the CD and then you can go back and add files. I haven't had any realiability problems doing this and now all my important files/photos go to CD-R and I'll use the CD-RW for tempory purposes.

[RobertHJones]

I have to agree with Brian, I stopped using CD-RW and just use CD-R now.
I've had far too many instances of file system corruption on a CD-RW to
trust them. CD-R has worked out well for me.

Bob

[Ray]

By the way,many burning softwares can write on CD-R until they are totally
filled, on several different occasions. That means, if you burn something
and it doesn't fill the entire 650 (or 700) MB of space, you may burn some
more files later. This is called "sessions" and a CD can hold many sessions
(don't know the exact number of them).

Ray

[Barbara Brundage]

Yes, in jaguar you can set up "sessions" in the finder, Owl. The directions are here <http://docs.info.apple.com/article2.html?artnum=107240>. Or you can do it easily with Toast, if that's what you're using. (I'm not sure if finder burning works with external drives.)

[Susan S.]

Barbara - now that is the first really strong argument I've heard for upgrading to 10.2 - I didn't know Jaguar could do that, and I don't have Toast. (I don't have any money for discretionary spending until my credit card bill is paid off next month either. My husband and I have been in retail therapy mode this week...mid-winter sale time here! )
Susan S

[Susan S.]

Thanks Barbara - that was the plan - although I don't see any mention of the minimum specs to run it! It sounds a bit graphics heavy for the G3 to handle. I plan to get broadband when we come back from our overseas jaunt, and that will allow me to keep up with the inevitable downloads and bug-fixes.

Susan S.

[owl_luvr]

Barbara Brundage asked: But Owl, now that I think about it--how old is your computer? Doesn't it have a cd burner already?

Nope. I'm on a Kihei iMac, circa 1999/2000 or thereabouts. In fact, that's another rreason I had put off buying an external burner. I knew that, someday, I'd replace this iMac, and the replacement would have a burner as standard equipment. That purchase won't happen for quite awhile, though, even with the introduction of the G5's the other day.

Owlz

[carl sutherland]

Barbara B.

I sure am glad you are here. I do not think I would have made the switch to MAC if you were not and I am sure glad I made the switch.

Thanks for the referral for the multisession program on one CD. Although my Nero software supposedly had that capability, I usually could not do it. I also have the opposite question. If I have a file that is too large to put on a single disc, can I program to stop when the CD is full and pick up at the same place to finish on a new disc. I never could figure that out on my Windows unit and Nero software. I had to do it image file by file until one CD was filled then one by one on the next CD until I was done. I would like to deal with the entire file as a unit. This is not an uncommon occurrance as I may take over 100 pictures per day, then stored under a single file of that day, and can easily exceed 700 MB. I looked briefly in the Apple Help where the other reference was and did not see the topic I wanted. Maybe I should have looked longer.

Would you write more about the G5 and Finding Nemo? Apparently something significant happened with it and the G5 but I am not at a level to understand what you wrote. Will the G5 be faster at playing games? I do not play them myself, but the computer magazines I read are filled with stories about how fast their Windows hot rod rig is for games and use that one criteria to claim superiority for Windows units over MACs. Any thoughts?

Thank you,

Carl

[Barbara Brundage]

Carl, here's <http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance> the specs page, but it's not the same as watching it work.

BTW, FWIW, Adobe announced a maintenance update there yesterday for photoshop for later this summer/fall. I doubt it would affect PE directly, though.

[Barbara Brundage]

I should mention, though, that these benchmark tests are always the subject of endless argument, regardless of whether they're done for macs or pcs.

[Chuck Snyder]

Marty, it's really surprising to me that you can't read a CD-R disc from the
old computer on the new computer's CD-RW drive. Are you sure the new drive
is functioning properly?? Is one of the drives on the old computer a CD
read-only, not a burner?

Chuck

[Dick Smith]

Marty, another possibility....

If your old CD's were created with CD Creator (Roxio) and weren't closed to be read on any computer that could be the problem.

Dick

[Chuck Snyder]

Dick, that may be the 'Aha' Marty is looking for....

[Chuck Snyder]

Pete, that would be a problem if Marty couldn't get it to burn a CD that
would be compatible with her new 'puter... Marty, would be nice if you
could get or borrow an external CD-R that could be hooked up to one computer
to burn, the other computer to read...

Chuck

[Barbara Brundage]

Carl, to get back to your point. No, the part of stuffit I meant isn't anything specifically to do with cds. It's for splitting large files for mailing or whatever. Do you have stuffit standard or stuffit lite?

EDIT I haven't used it, but you might want to give this <http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/13072> a try on a copy of file to see if it works.

[Barbara Brundage]

Some of the files were big (250 MB/one image) so I would like to do sequential
CDs for backup with the least work. Any suggestions?




Well, the very easiest way is to just burn your cd in the finder--I never use disk copy myself, Just put the disk in, name it and then drag the files to it--at 250 MB a file you only have a couple to drag. Then drag the disk to the trash can. You'll see a burn button in the dock then. (or you can choose burn from the file menu without dragging). Another advantage of finder burning is you don't have all those disk images to mount--you can just drag the files right out of the burned cd to copy them to the desktop for use.

EDIT I don't think you can burn a multi-session cd in the finder though, but I'm not at all sure about that. If you see a black flippy triangle in the "initialize' dialog box, click it and it should be there.

[carl sutherland]

Barbara,

Thanks for the tips. I have been in Federal Court today-as plaintif not defendent thank goodness-and my attornies thought it went well. However, no time for PSE 2 and MAC. What you have given me will get me started along with the Switch to MAC book you recommended by Pogue which is great. He describes things so well I now am starting to understand our Windows unit as he talks about the switch. I'll get back when I have had time for a field test.

Any suggested MAC oriented site or sites I should frequent? You seem to know so many so well.

Thanks

Carl