tallen wrote:
HELP!

I have a CD with a large quantity of family photos all .jpgs taken
between 1999 and 2003. The CD was supposed to be my archive before I
wiped the pictures off my hard drive. Only about half the images now
preview in thumbnails the rest just show a generic page icon of a
sailboat and sunset. When I try to open one of these files with
Microsoft picture viewer it says "no preview available". When I try to
open using Photoshop it says bad format. Same with Photo Deluxe except
it says there is a problem parsing the JPEG data. Yet, the CD directory
lists them with the correct file name and appropriate size as does the
Properties box.

This isn't good.

Folks, you've heard this before, but I'll say it again:

KEEP BACKUPS OF IMPORTANT FILES!

You didn't.

I've tried the CD on 5 different drives in 3 different computers with
the same outcome. Except...sometimes one or two of the files that had a
generic icon will show up correctly in thumbnails when I reinsert the CD
in some of the drives...but it is sporatic. Which is very strange.
Incidentally, the unreadable files are not in sequential order. They
are spread out across the whole CD. So I don't think it is a media
issue...I'm only guessing at this.

It's a media issue. The CD is going bad in patches across its
surface. You've done the right things so far so I don't know what
else to suggest.

Any advice before I just shoot myself and go back to film and paper.

Keep backups of important files. You entrusted your photos to a
20-cent CD. Next time make it at least two 20-cent CDs.

I keep three copies of all my photos. One on the hard disk, one
copied to DVDs at home, and a second set of DVDs in my office at work.
I worry if that's enough. And my photos require about a dozen DVDs
for a full backup.

--
Ray Fischer