Photo Backup troubleshooting FAQ

Sometimes our server becomes busy and download times are longer. You can download the program from a mirror near your location. We recommend Simtel's mirror sites:

For Windows 2000/XP: http://www.simtel.com/pub/pd/75229.html

For Windows 98/Me: http://www.simtel.com/pub/pd/75698.html

Program doesn't install:

Make sure that you've downloaded a complete file.

Right click on the installer and check the file size:

For Windows 2000/XP: 4.36 MB (4,573,573 bytes)

For Windows 98/Me: 4.42 MB (4,642,786 bytes)

If the file size is OK, but the installer still doesn't function, there may be a problem with your system. We strongly suggest checking for viruses.

CD burning

Can't do - bad CD label

If you get this message when trying to burn CDs, select the 'manually set label' option in the burning dialog and enter a label.
This problem only occures for some burner drives, in release 2.1.0.
You can download a new release to solve this problem.

CD burning fails

Check the selected burning speed. Some computers can only burn at lower speeds. Check the buffer indicator at the lower right hand side of the burning screen. If this empties during the burning process, buffer under-run occurs and the burning fails.

In order to increase the possible burning speed of your CD / DVD burner you should follow these steps:

1) Download and install the latest version of Photo Backup (click here). We follow the advances in burner technology and produce releases, which support advanced modes and algorithms for CD/DVD burning.

2) Make sure that your drive works in DMA mode (see this technical note for details).

3) De-fragment your hard drive. If the files you are trying to burn are very fragmented on the drive, the CPU will not be able to read them fast enough to send to the burner drive.

4) Turn off anti-virus software. This may be required, depending on your anti-virus software and its setting. Many anti-virus programs run at low CPU and disk utilization and will not affect the burning speed. However, if all other steps fail, you should disable the anti-virus software and try burning.

5) Try to burn another CD using lower burning speed. Some (older) burner drives don't implement burnproof technology (or don't implement it correctly). If you computer cannot feed in the data fast enough for the selected burn speed, you can try burning at lower speeds.

The program reports that it can only burn at very slow speeds

If the program reports that it can only burn CDs at very slow speed, there is a good chance of an incompatible burner driver. Please let us know the model of your CD burner and we'll see how we can fix that.

Index generation

Where is the index stored on my hard drive?

The HTML index is stored in the same directory where you saved the session.

A directory called 'Index of session_name' is created. To manually view the index, open this directory and double click on 'index.html'.

Where should I burn the index?

Although is it technically possible to burn the index onto the same CD where your photos are backed-up, it is not recommended. The backup CD collection updates with time, as you backup newly taken photographs. We recommend that a dedicated CD be used for the index.

You can, however, use a single CD to index several backup sessions. Since the size of the index on the CD is relatively small, a single CD can accommodate many indexes for many sessions.

The index thumbnails don't function from the backup

That's right. The index thumbnails point to where your original files reside (or resided) on your hard drive. The thumbnails are not click-able if the original files are not present on the hard disk at their original location.

If you restore the data to its original location, the thumbnails will become active again.