An Alternative Method for Backing Up the PSE7 Organizer

[George Tyndall]

The PSE7 Organizer is, for me, the “heart” of my system for producing creations. I use iTunes to keep track of my music files, but all other media are tracked by the Organizer, so it’s extremely critical that I have the ability to quickly create incremental backups — and to be able to recover quickly when the inevitable crash of my HDD occurs.

My method consists of creating the PSE7 catalog on one external HDD and then backing it up to an identical second external HDD, let's call them HDD01 and HDD02.

Let’s start with HDD01. Once I’ve created a new catalog on this HDD, I’m going to move all the media that it will track into folders on that same HDD. The next step is to “Get” all those media into the new catalog, tagging them as I go along. When I’ve finished, I will open SmartSyncPro and direct the program to “Copy Source to Destination.” Optionally, one may also select “Delete Obsolete Files from Destination,” in which case each time I perform a backup of HDD01, SSP will remove from HDD02 any files that I have deleted from HDD01 since the last incremental backup.

Here is the procedure in detail:
- In PSE7 go to File>Catalog
- Browse to HDD01
- Select New
- Enter a name for the new catalog, let’s call it Catalog 01
- Deselect “Import free music into the catalog”
- Click Ok
- Exit PSE7
- Open HDD01, where PSE7 has created a folder named Catalog 01
- Open the folder and double-click the file <catalog.pse7db> -- the new PSE7 Organizer opens
- Go to File>Get Photos and Videos and place your tags as you import each folder of media from HDD01
- When you’ve finished “getting and tagging,” run a program that does incremental backups, that is, one that will backup only those files that you have changed since your last backup — HDD01, of course, is your Source and HDD02 is your Destination

You now have two identical HDDs containing identical PSE7 catalogs and all the media that each tracks. Personally, in the future I will always open my PSE7 catalog from the <catalog.pse7db> file. The reason is that I have multiple catalogs on multiple HDDs, and I want to always be sure which particular catalog I am working in and adding to.

Also, I keep SSP open while working, and I run it frequently — every 5 minutes or so. This does give my HDDs a workout, but the upside is to know that the most of my work that I can lose is whatever I’ve completed since my last backup 5 minutes earlier. BTW, it may take SSP as little as one second to perform an incremental backup of 5 minutes of work, depending upon what I did during those 5 minutes, say, 5 minutes of editing on the PRE7 Timeline–which brings me to another point: All the Creations that I produce from the media on HDD01 also go on HDD01, whether slide shows or videos, and they, of course, also get backed up as soon as PSE or PRE has finished outputting them to the HDD.

The beauty of the above procedure, apart from sleeping well, is that I can take those two HDDs with me to a variety of work locations, and as long as there is a machine with PRE/PSE7 installed on its C Drive, I can continue my work.
- If I am in the process of creating a slide show in PSE7, I open it from within the Organizer and go to work
- If I am working on a video project with PRE7, I open it by clicking on the PREL file that I’ve created on HDD01 and go to work


Simple Procedure in the Event of a Crash of HDD01

Open HDD02, click on the <catalog.pse7db> file and–Voila! -- your PSE7 catalog opens up looking just the way it did when you ran your last incremental backup.

[Steve Grisetti]

Another great tip, George! Thank you!

[Barb O]

George,
I am adding some additional considerations for usage of multiple disk drives with the Photoshop Elements 7 and Premiere Elements 7 Organize functions.

1- Starting with PSE 6, the PSE Organizer uses a drive’s “volume serial number” rather than drive letters to uniquely identify drives.

More information about this and the potential consequences of having two drives with the same serial number is available at
http://johnrellis.com/psedbtool/#TwoDrivesHaveSame
This information was created by John R Ellis, a very knowledgeable Adobe customer and frequent participant on the Adobe Photoshop Elements forum. He also has an analysis tool for your Organizer catalog and that is described in the same web document.

2 - Functions in Premiere Elements 7 continue to use the drive letter assignment method.

Therefore when using external hard drives, the Disk Management facilities of Windows should be used to permanently assign a drive letter to an external hard drive.

point 2 note 1:
Premiere Elements 7 editing does have functions for locating files that are not present at the location known to the Premiere Elements project. However experience seems to indicate that the PRE 7 Organize panel does not have these functions.

point 2 note 2:
This concept of making an permanent drive letter assignment to external hard drives is familiar to many Premiere Elements users. However, because this permanent drive letter assignment is no longer required for Photoshop Elements (as of v6), I decided to emphasize this consideration for people experienced with Photoshop Elements who are new to Premiere Elements.

[George Tyndall]

George,
I am adding some additional considerations for usage of multiple disk drives with the Photoshop Elements 7 and Premiere Elements 7 Organize functions.

Yes, Barb O,it is imperative that the external HDDs be assigned permanent drive letters; otherwise, it would be impossible for SmartSyncPro to function from one session to another.

For those who are not aware, here is how to do this:
--the very first time you attach an external HDD to your computer, think carefully which of the still-available drive letters you will assign to it
--in my case, drive letter A (for non-existent floppy drive), B, C (main internal drive), D (second internal drive) E (partition on C drive for restoring the OS), F (Blu-ray/DVD writer), G (HD DVD ROM drive) and H (external DVD writer that I also use for writing CDs) were already used, so I chose the letters I, J and K
--it is very important to attach only one USB drive at a time and get its permanent letter assigned before adding another so there will be no confusion at to which is which
--to change the letter, go to the Start menu, right-click My Computer>Manage>Disk Management then scroll down to the new drive, right-click in the rectangular box and select Change Drive Letter and Paths>Change and then scroll down to the letter you want to use; when you see the warning box, click OK and in a few moments that letter will be changed -- THIS SHOULD BE DONE ONLY WITH A NEW EXTERNAL DRIVE WITH NOTHING ON IT -- DO NOT CHANGE THE DRIVE LETTER OF ANY DRIVE THAT HAS DATA ALREADY ON IT UNLESS YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING
--attach the next USB drive and repeat
--close the Disk Management window

Only after you have at least 2 external HDDs with two different letters mounted are you ready to implement the method that I described above.

Thank you Barb O.

[George Tyndall]

1- Starting with PSE 6, the PSE Organizer uses a drive’s “volume serial number” rather than drive letters to uniquely identify drives.

Barb O, I just learned that SmartSyncPro has released version 3.1. Among the new features is this one: Identify removeable disk by label and serial number.

The obvious advantage is that the user will always know for sure which particular external HDD (with its unique serial number) has which drive letter assigned to it.