Computer headache

After a frustrating weekend with major computer problems I finally got my computer back up and running. I had to have some heavy duty help though because I was out of my element for sure. (It's great to have smart friends - actually it's just great to have friends!) When we finally got things figured out, it was a bad memory stick causing the conflict which was fortunate because the fix was relatively inexpensive. The negative side to the story was that I ultimately had to reformat my C drive which means I lost all my settings, favorites and my music library. I am still trying to recover all my data.

When I had this computer built by Circular Systems in Sacramento a little over a year ago, I specced two 320GB hard drives so that I could back up all my photos to a separate physical drive. I highly reccomend Circular for computers, they can build you anything you might want and will work with you to get you exactly what meets your needs. In this case, that second drive was a lifesaver. All my photos were saved on the D drive and fully recoverable. With the low cost of hard drive storage these days, there is really no reason to not have a backup drive. In fact, I saw 500 GB Western Digital and Seagate drives this past week for about $50 each.

Another great idea is imaging software which allows making a copy of everything on your hard drive in case of a problem. It was this "image" that allowed me to get my Operating System back up and running. I used Acronis software to make the image and I know there are numerous other options as well.

After all the drama with computers, I did actually get out for a little while and went with my son and friends to the "Spring Get Together" Car show on Plumas Street in Yuba City. We had a good time shooting some very nice cars. The weather was perfect for this kind of outing. Shown are a couple of examples . . . . .

You can check out my articles about event photography at Examiner.com Let me know what you think or if you have ideas about events that might be interesting for readers.