Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) disaster - DO NOT UPGRADE!

[Tony Finnerty]

I'm such a @!% idiot. I upgraded to Tiger before others find the bugs and I just had a disaster. Hundreds of my recent photo files disappeared. The much-vaunted Spotlight search engine is a piece of kaka - I was unable to search for the missing files using partial file names, and the Help function was no help at all. I rebooted in Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, which is able to search for partial filenames, and found most of the missing photo files in a hidden folder called ".Trash", so I was able to recover them.

It took hours to find and recover those files, and I had to delete four-letter words in this message before the forum software would post it.

I have no idea how the photo files got into the .Trash folder. Maybe there is an incompatibility between Photoshop CS2 and Tiger (I'm a double-idiot for upgrading early to CS2). In Unix/Linux, filenames beginning with "." are invisible unless you know how to find them. I'm not sure how I found the missing files in Panther...

There are not many things more important to me than my photos, so I am really unhappy with Apple. I've had hardware problems with Apple stuff in the past year, too. After much experience, I really dislike Winduhs and now I view Macintosh as no better. If Photoshop ran on Linux I would never touch Windows or Mac OS again. Grrrrrr... I should just nuke my confusers and go back to film.

--
Tony
http://flipperty.smugmug.com

 

[Mike Spence]

Hi Tony,

glad you managed to recover your images via Panther.

I haven't upgraded to Tiger yet (still waiting for the multi-license packs to be issued) however I have used it on two associates Macs and there weren't any such issues with their image collections. There are a few new tricks to learn but it all seems straightforward.

I think your post is a timely reminder for users of any OS: before an upgrade - backup.

And, for peace of mind generally, back up images onto mulitple firewire (or USB 2 if that's your bag) HD's (because HD's can fail). They are suprisingly good value nowadays

The one thing I haven't got around to doing yet is converting my images to DNG format.

Regards,

Mike.

 

[rayk]

Sorry to hear it, Tony.

Bad news, having new systems go awry. And I agree. Photos are about all that is worth anything on my mac, too. I can't really say anything that will cheer you up, but thanks for the warning, and I will heed it, for sure. I had 10.3.8 running perfectly, upgraded to 10.3.9, and now I feel I have a few issues with browsers. So I will leave Tiger alone for a while.

Get yourself outside a few cold ales, and you will feel better!

Ray Kinnane
Saga-shi, Japan

 

[OzRay]

Tony

I can commiserate, as that was something Windows 98 owners could be expected to experience. But since Windows 2000, and moreso with Windows XP, I haven’t had any problems at all, no matter what I throw at my PC.

However, I still keep all of my photos in more than one place, just in case. Hard drives are quite cheap nowadays and so I have several external hard drives onto which I transfer my RAW images. I don’t trust CDs at the moment (haven’t tried DVDs), as I’ve found many that have become unreadable after a relatively short time.

Cheers

Ray

--
There are no limits, only challenges - me (unless someone else said it first).

Photography is like a good book, you become absorbed by the image, not the syntax and sentence structure - me (unless someone said this first as well).

http://www.rkp.com.au/AustralianImage/

 

[Colin M.]

Tony

Sorry to hear this, one is always tempted to get the latest version as it must always be better and improved on the last version surely!

Shall heed your warning ( running 10.3.8 ) even though I have no problems with Macs and running software and upgrading firmware in cameras. Would never use anything else! Will upgrade to CS2 but will wait to see this issue resolved before using 10.4.

Sometimes not having the capital to outlay immediately on products is a good handicap as it allows others to discover the fault and by the time one can, all issues have been patched or resolved.

Purchased a new E1 recently for $725USD great camera, old technology, about to be replace, but with proven performance and at this price I am happy to invest in a product that has proved itself over time.

I see you have posted this in the MacTools forum so it will be interesting to hear what theories and solutions are suggested.
Regards Colin
Photographic works: panoramics & stills:
http://www.colin-mossong.net.nz

 

[Simon Joinson]

I upgraded to Tiger in half an hour, using Photoshop CS2, no problems at all. Think you must've been unlucky!

S
--
Simon Joinson, dpreview.com

 

[Jim Attfield]

In Unix/Linux,
filenames beginning with "." are invisible unless you know how to
find them. I'm not sure how I found the missing files in Panther...

Glad you got them back. From a command prommpt the '-a' switch will show hidden files, in a GUI perhaps there is the equivalent (show all, show hidden) check box or option somewhere?

Jim

 

[Actrurus]

Sorry to hear about your problems, I've just upgraded three machines here to 10.4 and it all went very smoothly appart from one. All systems can fail from time to time, I guess it's another example of where full backups could have saved the day.

The issue with the one machine was the installer tries to verify the drive you are using and it failed this test, so I simply copied the data files to another drive and then choose 'format and install'. This had the benefit of clearing out all the old accumulated junk and sliming down the amount of roomtaken up by the OS itself. The wife only really used Office on this machine so it was simple to copy back her files and re-install Office.

 

[Greg Gebhardt]

I got gigs of images that have great value to me and would never dream of doing such an OS upgrade without being able to recover. Back-up with mutiple copies and remove at least one to another location. Do it often.

--
Greg Gebhardt in
Jacksonville, Florida
http://www.pbase.com/greggebhardt
D 2 X
D 1 X
D 2 H
O L Y M P U S E - Three Hundred

 

[Martin Ledford]

I upgraded four Macs (two PowerBooks and two Towers) to OS 10.4. No problems at all. Incredible upgrade and definitely worth it.

Martin

--
Epson RD-1, Canon 1Ds, 1D, 10D, SD500, 1v
Hasselblad H1 + Kodak ProBack 645h, Olympus E1

 

[Tony Finnerty]

I've had a night of sleep and cooled down a bit, and am thinking more analytically. I can't tell whether the bug is in Tiger or PS CS2 - perhaps a unique interaction between the two that won't involve PS CS2 on Windows. But it is surely a bug or user-interface flaw - I had deleted a few files in Adobe Bridge, but not nearly the 100+ files that disappeared into ".Trash".

Backups are vital, of course. I make four copies of all ORF files: two to an external RAID array, one to CDs that are stored off site, and one to DVDs. The files I lost (and found again) were new photos taken in the past two days, which I hadn't fed into my backup system yet. Until bug fixes come out, I will no longer take quick looks at photo files until I have backed up the ORFs first.

I'll continue to use Tiger and PS CS2 - there is much to recommend both of them. I'll never be an early adopter again (which is just an unpaid beta tester), though, and certainly won't be so dumb again that I upgrade two major pieces of software at the same time.

--
Tony
http://flipperty.smugmug.com

 

[nrivas]

Hehe. I upgraded to OSX 10.4 and CS2 a couple days ago. I haven't run into any problems yet. OSX 10.4 is a resource hog so the more memory the better (I up'd to 1GB). As for CS2, its really nice. I like the new features. The ACR also now supports Olympus ORF and the noise reduction feature is pretty good. All in all, I wouldn't say OSX 10.4 is a 'must-have' but CS2 is definitely a 'go buy it!'

--
E-300, 14-45mm, 50mm f1.8, FL-36

 

[Big Ga]

I'll never be an early adopter again

Good policy!

Hey..... I waited 3 years before I bought an E10 !!!

Glad you got it sorted in the end. You've just reminded me its time to make some BIG backups and store them in another location.

Cheers
Gareth