Protecting Your Baby’s Pictures & Videos

As a photo buff, it took me a long time to switch to digital photography. One of the things that kept me from going digital is how easily you can lose precious memories with these gadgets. One hard drive glitch can mean hundreds of photos and videos lost in an instant.

When I finally made the leap, I made sure I backed-up photos in multiple CDs and DVDs, that is until the picture files became too large. Then I had to save in external hard drives.

Still, I feel like a battered veteran when it comes to hard drive and memory card crashes. I’ve had a laptop hard-drive crash on me months before my wedding. And so far, I’ve had 2 external hard drive and 5 memory card crashes.

Now that I am a mom, my photo and video collection has become more precious than ever. And so I’ve made sure to arm against these technical mishaps

Photo by Imagerymajestic for FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I want to share them with you.

For starters, here are some DON’Ts:

1.Do not move your laptop when it is turned on. This is a bad habit we are all guilty of. To save time as I rushed from one meeting to another, I used to move from floor to floor with an running laptop in my hands. I didn’t know that it was damaging my hard-drive. All laptop manuals, if we care to read them, say we should switch to Standby/Sleep/Hibernate mode before transporting laptops. More so, we have to wait until it has given us the signal that it is already in that mode. Macs have have an indicator light that blinks successively when it has entered the sleep mode. Some Windows based laptops also does this. A computer-engineer advised that I count to ten after turning off the machine before moving it. These important few seconds assure that the hard drive has stopped turning and will therefore not suffer any physical damage when moved.

2. Do not move your external hard drive while it is copying data. The reason is the same as the above. If you can avoid it, do not use the memory card slot of your laptop to transfer files. There are instances when doing so corrupts the memory card. Sometimes the laptop’s configuration muddles the memory card’s and when you put it back to your camera or video cam, the memory card can’t be read anymore. Instead, use a USB cord to attach your camera/video cam to your computer. Also, if you use the memory card slot there is a risk that you might absentmindedly pull the memory card out without disabling it first using the “Safely Remove Hardware” or “Eject Device” function of your computer and thus corrupting the card.

3. Do not delete photos and videos from memory cards. Memory Cards can become your digital negatives, making it easy to access important memories when you lose your laptop or hard drives. These cards are becoming cheaper every day and they are more foolproof than hard drives that can easily crash when you accidentally move it while it is running or being used. They are also less theft-friendly than external hard drives. 

Here are the I DOs:

1. Back-up important files every month if you can, just to be sure.

2. Use a free internet-based service like Google Drive to store really important pictures. The bonus is you can access and share these pictures anywhere you are.

3. Invest in a data recovery software. I bought DDR-Memory Card Recovery for $69 some years ago and it has served me well, preventing me from hyper-ventilating and tearing my hair out when I have one of those crashes. 

4. If your computer/hard drive/memory card crashes, please do not use it or reformat just yet, doing so overwrites data that can still be recovered. Try to compose yourself before doing anything drastic. There is help available in the form of a software or a service center that specializes in memory crashes.

If you find yourself in a bind after having a memory card conk out on you, please don’t hesitate to message me. You can send your memory card via courier. With a small fee of P500 (for time and electricity), I’ll run my software and try to save your files in your external hard drive.

I have been there and I know the distress it can cause and I’d like to help in my own little way.For faster response, email me at jennifer_caspe@yahoo.com or call at (632) 7107874 from 10AM-7PM only.