I'm glad I got that external HD as I only had my photo's backed up on CDs which must be just over 5 years old now and apart from when I first made them I've never touched them, I would have been really upset if anything happened and when I tried to access the photos they didn't work. Perhaps they last longer if they never see the light of day.
I back up to hard drive but I don't do it often enough. I am looking at a new network hub which I can plug 5 USBs into so I can then back up to all the time, just need to justify lol as I want to start completely afreshand buy a new HD at same time lol!!
I read once that how long the DVD last can also vary by what they are made of. I used to back up my photos to two copies on DVDs, each one from a different manufacturer in an attempt to reduce the risk. Now I backup my photos to an external hard-drive & a DVD.
im expecting a big bill today. my pc would not turn on. it may be the mother board or the power supply. im glad i saved my files to my external hard drive.
Can anyone tell me how to decide what write speed to choose? How can I find out for my computer? I have a Sony Vaio Desktop VGC LA2
Take a look at the DVD disk - it should have the max speed written on it e.g 16x, 4x etc. I know my DVD burner software has an option to saying max speed (from memory) & the software works out the optimum speed itself. Hope this helps.
My printer died last week and we went to get another yesterday, different make etc. Installed great, no problems, or so we thought. Usually when we want to print of a picture we can just double click the pic and it comes up in Microsoft picture manager, then there's a button for print, click that and its still bringing up my canon pixma properties, obviously this is offline - cos I uninstalled it. I've been through the C Drive, the program files and everything I can think of to see if there are extra files hidden somewhere, but can't see any. Can one of you tell me what I'm doing wrong and how I can possibly get rid of this completely so that I can print automatically to the new printer? BTW- the canon printer is still showing in my Control panel>Printers, tried to delete but it doesn't. Hoping someon can help.
I'm not sure if I understand all of what you say and when you remove programs it doesn't remove everything, there is probably a registry entry that is directing the show and the left over files are what it is using.
You could go into the properties of one of the picture files and change the file association to your new printer program, that might solve the problem.
Go to Control Panel > Printers, find your new printer and right click on it, then select 'Set as default printer'.
Next time you try to print, your new printer should be the one listed.
As for removing the old printer options, there should be a canon software listed in uninstall panel (Control panel > Add/remove programs if you have win Xp) (Control panel > Programs and features if you have win vista). The icon for your old machine shown in Control panel > printers should be able to be deleted (right click on it > delete) once you change the default printer to your new machine.
For the record, I have some floppy disks (what on earth are they!! ) with important Windows boot stuff on from nearly seven years ago that are still usable as I discovered recently.
In theory you should check stuff regularly to see (a) that your data is readable and (b) that your backups are not corrupted. You sometimes have to be careful with older CDs as depending on how they were written, they may or may not be readable with newer CD drives - I remember my husband having issues with this years ago.
My external HD is permanently attached and automatically backs up everything for me on a weekly or fortnightly rota. I keep a year's worth of backups (and some older stuff too) now before I delete anything - something I learned from work years ago when we had to store and back up our library data on to tape drives.
Rosemary
"The main reason people buy those machines [Craft Robos] is to cut out words and lace doily patterns for their scrapbooks."
CDs you buy and burn to yourself have a shelf life as well, I read between 5-10 years. They don't have the protective layer that the CDs you buy with music and films on have.
CDs you buy and burn to yourself have a shelf life as well, I read between 5-10 years. They don't have the protective layer that the CDs you buy with music and films on have.
That's handy to know. Every so many years I will have to have a burning session as I have home made slide shows and videos of holidays and the grandchildren. I wouldn't want to lose them
Stephen Spielburg watch out!
God must love stupid people-He made so many of them
Thanks Lucille and Brian. I've done everything Brian said. I uninstalled from the Programs and features as I have Vista, it said it uninstalled correctly. Then I noticed it was still using the canon properties for printing so found a canon folder in the Program folder>deleted that. My new printer is set to default but the old printer icon in the printers folder will not delete and it is still using the canon properties for printing, but won't print to the new printer unless I choose to print Photo's on best photo setting. Any more ideas gratefully received.
I think I may have solved it for now, but the canon printer is still in there somewhere just can't find it. Anyway I've added a screenshot of my screen when I click print, there's a drop down menu which I've just discovered and my new printer the Epson is one of the options, so if I click on that it will now bring up my epson print settings.
Thanks for your help. If you do know of a way of completely uninstalling the canon that I haven't already done I would very much appreciate your help.
Try doing a search. I did this yesterday as I couldnt install something as it said some components were already on my computer. I couldnt find them anywhere so I did a search and found them hidden away. I deleted them and then everything worked ok. x
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DVD write speed
Originally Posted by elwoodsusanm
) with important Windows boot stuff on from nearly seven years ago that are still usable as I discovered recently. 
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