Need some help with backing up my pictures - having lots of trouble

[ChowChi-Ching]

I have a 100gig harddrive on my laptop and it is pretty much maxed out and so we bought a terabyte external harddrive so I could back up all my pictures(plus I have a problem with my internal jack and my laptop needs repaired) So, anyway, today I decided to back it up before we took it in to get fixed.... Anytime I transfer a jpg file it transfers fine but if I try a NEF file I get an error (Data Error Cyclic Redundancy Check) Basically it is not accepting them. I am trying to transfer by copy/paste or drag and drop in Windows Explorer...... If anyone knows a way to make this work, please let me know! My external hardrive is connected to the wall with a regular plug in and then it is also connected to my computer with a USB port........

Please help!

Thanks!!

[Franglais]

Go into Event Viewer (Eventvwr) and check out the System log to see what the error code is and on what device.

Cyclic Error Redundancy Check is a fairly serious error, usually caused by a hardware problem. It might be on your old disk or on your new disk. Usually it isn't connected with a particular type of file. You might be having the problem with NEF files because they are much bigger then JPG's and are causing the problem to happen.

I don't think that this is something that you can sort out in any options in Windows.

How did you format your new disk?

[Dylan8i]

i know i had to format my external hd to a different type of format so it could have files over (5mb? i think it was). might want to read instrutions etc that came with it.

[Franglais]

i know i had to format my external hd to a different type of format so it could have files over (5mb? i think it was). might want to read instrutions etc that came with it.

That sounds promising but here are the real limits:

FAT16 = Maximum partition size of 2GB (partition = size of the disk seen by the system).
FAT32 = Almost unlimited partition size but maximum file size = 4GB
NTFS = Almost unlimited partition and file size plus the system journals changes so in the event of a system crash the chances of corrupting your disk are extremely small. However NTFS format is not readable by Macintosh or older Windows systems (Pre-XP)

[ChowChi-Ching]

It seems to be working right now although VERY slowly.... I had to install this programming that came with the hard drive and it is doing a backup of my entire computer(less the program files and such.... just all my pictures, videos, etc) but of course, having almost 100gig on there, it will probably take all night....... so..... I guess I will see when it is done. Hopefully when it gets to my NEF files it will read them okay.

BTW, we have Windows XP. If it matters. My laptop is a Toshiba M65....which we have since found out is notorious for having issues....just my luck!

Hopefully this all works because I cannot lose these pics... and it will take forever to burn them all to DVD........

[ChowChi-Ching]

Well.... bummer. Looks like my new hard drive may be toast!

Too Many bad sectors.... I am trying to repair them now but not sure it will work. I am going to be calling the company tomorrow and either going to get this one fixed or get it replaced...... SOOOOOOO glad I did not get my pics on it yet!!!!

[Don Schaeffer]

Yuk. At least you seem to know what you are doing. I get allmystified and lost.

[SmartWombat]

I had to install this programming that came with the hard drive

At which point I would run away very fast.

Personally I don't want anything that relies on special software, there's too much chance it won't work with the next Microsoft upgrade. Or on my next computer if it has to run Vista or Windoze 9 because they stop selling XP.
Because of that I would want it to be a standard USB disk with standard formatting.
Or a network disk that supports CIFS, AFP, and NFS so all my options are covered.

[jorgemonkey]

Well.... bummer. Looks like my new hard drive may be toast!

Too Many bad sectors.... I am trying to repair them now but not sure it will work. I am going to be calling the company tomorrow and either going to get this one fixed or get it replaced...... SOOOOOOO glad I did not get my pics on it yet!!!!

One thing I learned the hard way, copy the pictures to your external drive, then verify they are there then they work. Then go buy yourself a 2nd external drive, copy all your pictures onto that drive as well.

I had just moved a ton of video/picture files to my external drive so I could then format my internal drive & clean up my computer. Next day we had a power outage, and when the power came back on, my surge protector didn't work and it fried my hard drive. Now it'll be around $1500 to get the data off the drive. Luckily I had the pictures on DVDs as well so I got those back on my own.

I still have about 60 gigs worth of MTB videos I shot which are sitting on that drive.

[Franglais]

Well.... bummer. Looks like my new hard drive may be toast!

Too Many bad sectors.... I am trying to repair them now but not sure it will work. I am going to be calling the company tomorrow and either going to get this one fixed or get it replaced...... SOOOOOOO glad I did not get my pics on it yet!!!!

The bad sectors might be from the external drive box rather than the disk itself. I had one like that - you buy the box then put the disk in it you want. Sounds great except I got CRC failures like you which I couldn't repair.

Finally I replaced the external drive with one from a well-known manufacturer (LACIE mostly). For the one with the problem I removed the hard disk from the external box and mounted it inside one of my computers as a scratch disk (not for important data, just in case). I junked the box. Since then I havn't had any problems

[ChowChi-Ching]

I had bought a My Book Essential Edition from Western Digital.... Called for tech support today and after telling the guy my problems he goes "well, that sucks" (yeah, that pretty much summed it up!) He told me to take it back to my retailer and get a new replacement and see if it works...... we are definitely getting a refund. Not positive we will go with this same drive though.....