I have started saving important documents to Google documents, so they are living out there in the "cloud." I hope no one at Google is reading them although there's nothing very personal.

I also have some on CDs, but for some reason that is a pain in the butt. I think because I have to look on the CD in order to find the file I may want. I know that doesn't make sense, I just hate popping the CDs in and out. I do back up my tax forms on CD because that's one thing I don't want on Google docs.

I save my photos on Snapfish. It's not the best photo site, but it's free with my internet provider (Comcast).

I also print out important docs and keep a hard copy. I suppose that defeats the purpose of a computer, but I want a hard copy of my tax forms.

Another idea is to email important files to yourself. I do that and keep them in a folder in my Yahoo email.

I am so sorry this happened to you. What a terrible loss. If you shared any photos on any of our forums, maybe you can find them here. Same thing if you emailed them to friends.

My computer is about to give up the ghost, so I really need to be sure any truly important docs and photos are saved elsewhere. It's one of those things that I'm "getting to" but it needs to happen now.

I feel so bad for you. It makes my stomach sink to think of it.

dedtired - Thank you for your kind words of commiseration. Luckily DH is the one that takes care of the finances and taxes so always makes paper copies and other backups. I too have found CD/DVDs as backup a pain in the butt.

I do have some photos on Photobucket but they are low quality JPEGs. I did find an old camera flash card that I didn't erase so have some photos that go back 2 years. I am going to put that on a DVD. I just bought some new flash drives at Costco so put them there too.

I am a terrible procrastinator. I always meant to do the DVD back up but never got around to it. Now I am paying for that.

I also think my 5 yr old computer is getting flaky. I am having problems with the USB ports. Sometimes it reads the device and sometimes not. More headaches.

Computers are great when they work but when they don't!!!!!
Clare

I second that! Love them and hate them.

(((Clare))) hugs to you! I hate them too.

Carp!!! I can't imagine what I would do if I lost my files. I'm sure for months you will be feeling the pain as you have a need for one of your files only to realize that it's gone.

I have been saved 3 times by Carbonite; a relatively small price to pay for piece of mind.

Don't give up!!!

Look for a hard drive data recovering services. They will get everything back.

dcarch

BTW, go to the "Computer Forum" here, someone will probably refer you to a few.

Good luck.

I tried one more data recovery service that was recommended on another forum. It is called "RecoverMyFiles". In the preview it showed some of the Photoshop files that I thought were lost. I think I may have got lucky. So I bought the program for $69.95. Worth it if I get back most of my lost files. It recovered 51,461 out of 55,495. Now I will spend the rest of the day saving them onto flash drives then DVDs.

Thanks everyone for your well wishes.
Clare

Yippee!

You had 55,000+ files??

What a nightmare! I second Carbonite, although I don't use them at home, only at work. DS has bought us Time Machine to do back ups, although it's not installed yet. DH uses an external hard drive for photos and we do upload some to smugmug, but frankly it's difficult to do it all.

I hope this recovery program is successful. Please keep us updated so we might buy it too!

Yay, glad you found something that worked!

DH started using Carbonite then switched to Crashplan. I don't know why, he is the techie.

Bummer. Glad it looks like you'll recover most of your stuff.

I use a ClickFree C6. I love it. It copies all files plus all software & your operating system. Has a screen so you can use it to quickly look at photos, etc.

This video gives a good overview. I wouldn't be without my C6.

/tricia

Here is a link that might be useful: ClickFree C6

dedtired - I know it sounds like a lot of files, but it really isn't when you count in all the files you get with the software programs like Windows OS, Office and Photoshop. Plus add on's and extentions. It recovered all the files on the hard drive, not just my personal ones. The fun part is that the names of the files were lost so I have to go through each and every one to decided what to keep. It will take me days or even weeks. Ugh! And they might be empty files or junk and corrupted files. Won't know till I open them.

compumom, jessyf, triciae - Thanks for the recommendations. I will keep the ones suggested in mind. This one was the first one to actually find something. The others I tried before couldn't find anything at all.

DH just bought a new 1 Terra Byte IOMEGA External hard drive 3.0 as a new backup. I am still going burn my PS files and photos onto DVDs as a third backup.

Thanks for the replies.
Clare

mustangs - Thank you for the recommendation of Carbonite. It has gotten 3 recommendations so will check it out.
Clare

I am learning a lot from this thread. Thanks for starting it, aptosca.

dedtired - I am glad someone can learn from my mistake. DH had to take the IOMEGA External hard drive back because it wanted to encrypt the files, which means we couldn't transfer files from one computer to another. We were going to download the zip files to the external hard drive than open them on his laptop. I don't have any more room on my hard drive to unzip them. So back to the store to find one we can just use a short term storage device. Will this nightmare ever end!
Clare

Clare, I have no idea what you just said, but good luck with it.