Photo Backup general FAQ

To make it simple, Photo Backup collects photographs from multiple folder and copies them to CDs or DVDs. Photo Backup needs to know the folders to scan. It then runs through each folder and sub-folder and searches for photos. The backup is done incrementally, so that next time only new, or updated files will be archived.
To make the backup useful, Photo Backup creates a graphical index, showing on which CD or DVD each file is located.
Photo Backup can also be used to archive any other file type, but the graphical index makes it especially powerful for backing up digital photos.

Why backup digital photographs?

Most people using a digital camera download their images to the hard drive of their computer. A small number of photos are being printed and the rest is safely kept in the computer. But, you may already know that computers (and especially hard drives) don't last forever. In order for you to enjoy those photographs for years to come, it is highly recommended to make regular backup of your digital photos. This backup should be stored on an external media, such as CDs and DVDs. To be 100% protected from disaster, you may consider maintaining multiple backups of your photographs.

Supported CD/DVD burner drives

Photo Backup contains its own burner driver. This driver relies on standard ASPI (Advanced SCSI Programming Interface) commands. If your CD/DVD burner drive is not very old (about 1999) - Photo Backup should support it. Both internal and external (USB1.0, USB1.1, USB2.0, Firewire IEEE-1394) drives are supported. It is always recommended to try the software before you purchase to make sure that your hardware is supported.

What can I backup using Photo Backup?

The name implies that Photo Backup is intended just for backing up digital photos. That's half true. Pre-defined filters speed up backup for JPEG, JPG, TIF and AVI files to CD or DVD. Photo Backup is especially designed to easily backup digital photos from your PC to CDs or DVDs, but it can actually be used to backup any type of files. Other pre-defined filters are set for audio files - MP3 and WMA and for Microsoft document types - DOC, XLS and PPT. You can use these filters to backup, or setup your own custom filter for any file-types.

Does it have anything useful for backing up audio files?

It sure does! You may have notices that audio files downloaded from the Internet (MP3, WMA, etc.) tend to have pretty long file names. CDs can only hold files with names up to 64 characters. Photo Backup truncates long file names, but keeps a record of the original names - so when you restore your music (or copy it to a different computer - like your office computer) it gets restored to the exact original name - no truncation.

Would I need any software to restore the data?

Actually, you don't. Photo Backup saves the files in their original format and in directories very similar to the original ones on your hard drive. You can just drag the backup directories from the CD to your (probably new) hard drive. However, when your data spans multiple CDs, it would be much faster to restore using Photo Backup. You can install the program and use it to restore your files automatically. You don't even need to register it in order to use the restore. We recommend that you place a copy of Photo Backup's installer on the index CD.

What's that index CD good for?

Keeping a separate CD just for the index is very good practice. The index CD can be used whenever you are looking for an archived file (say a photograph). You know in which directory you stored it, but you don't know on which CD it went. The graphical index that Photo Backup creates will tell you which CD holds that file. The index also includes an HTML list of all the files in the backup, and the backup CD for each file. You can search this index using the [Find] function of any web browser.

What gets backed-up?

Photo Backup does incremental backup. This means that after you've made backup of your files, and added or modified files (photos, mp3, documents, etc.), Photo Backup will only backup new or modified files to a CD or DVD. For example, you backed up your digital photos to 3 CDs. Then you took 200 more photos and spread them to different folders on the hard drive (according to subject), Photo Backup will only copy these 200 new photos to a CD. Photo Backup will automatically fill whatever CD you give it, and will prompt you for new CDs if they are required to complete the backup.