grabbing files from old windows backup disks...

[carl201167]

My PC has died (and good riddance) but there are a few files (mainly old photos) that I'd like to rescue and slap into iPhoto

I have a CD-ROM that I backed up from the PC using Pinnacle. Is there any way to extract the contents of the CD using my mac?

 

[mklos]

What exactly is on the CD? Is it a Pinnacle Studio database folder, and/or with photos in a folder? You'll need the actual photos in something like jpeg, tiff, bmp, etc format. A pinnacle studio database file won't do anything for you.

If you have a folder on the CD with the photos in some type of format, then drag that folder off the CD on to your desktop. From there you can import the photos into iPhoto from there.

 

[carl201167]

Not sure - it's 2 or 3 years old. The file name is backup.001 (not very helpful, I know)

 

[spinne1]

You will need the original files on the hard disk (they are there, right?). You need to hook up the PC hard drive to the Mac. Get an external hard drive case preferably with both USB and firewire for the type of hard drive it is (probably either IDE-ATA or SATA) then put the hard drive in it. Shut the computer off, hook up the hard drive, turn the computer on and drag the files you need off the hard drive. After you are done, you can reformat the hard drive in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using Disk Utility and then you have some backup.

If your pictures are ONLY in a database file you need a PC with that software to open the database and extract them somehow. Perhaps in that program it is easy, or if not you might have to do it the hard way which is to take screen shots and then manually crop the parts of the screen out that are not part of the photos for each picture. This may or may not be an acceptable result depending on whether the database program has shrunk the visible size of the photo down such that your file size/quality is too low.

 

[carl201167]

Thanks both