Sorry you had some computer problems.   I had a chat with my son-in-law today.   He is in charge
of keeping computers running for a Columbus based charitable organization, and he sees a lot of
different problems.   

Do not have direct information about Photoshop, but as you know, anything that is put on a computer is there to stay on the hard drive.   If  you try to delete it you only delete the means of finding it, and at some time it will be over-written.   Even then it is still there and can be retrieved, it is  $  just  $ a matter $ of effort, or funds to someone who knows how.    So, it would be wise for you to not use this drive until you solve the problem.   

There is a program called Spinrite and may be found at  WWW.GRC.com  that is not expensive and may help solve your problem.    Otherwise  you may want to contact a  Hard-drive Restorer.   There is at lease one in Columbus, Ohio.   

I have had some experience in backing up photo programs.    I use Qimage Pro for photo processing and love it.   Of course it is not a data base, but does store changes to photos in locations other than where the photos are located, which complicates back-up.   For that reason, and others, I love Norton Ghost.   Perhaps the free Google local computer search could help you find stuff.   It is super fast compared with the alternative.   

For the most effective use of Ghost run a second hard drive.   That drive can be partitioned into two.   One partition can be used to store a complete copy of your prime hard drive, and be completely replaced on a schedule.    The other partition can use the update feature of Ghost, which updates any changes of your prime drive every time there is a change, even if it is every hour.    There are no issues of where things are, since the entire drive  backup is done.   

Of course you could disconnect or un-plug a hard drive and store it in you sock drawer if you want to guard against a mega lightning strike that could burn up everything in the computer.     We had a direct hit to your transformer a couple of years ago.   It fried the microwave, did in a TV and a dishwasher circuit board.    I installed a whole house surge protector at the breaker panel after that
. 
The unit is a Sentrex JA120T.    You can install it yourself after you pull the main fuse breaker blocks in the house.   Will need to insert two 30 amp breakers to operate with it in the breaker panel.   You can do this yourself  if you do not mind working in the dark.   (Hey, those cap bill LED lights are great!)   

The above discussed surge protector of course is connected in parallel with the house wiring.
The small ones we plug the computer and such into are still needed.    The idea is that the large unit should slow down a spike so that the local ones can handle it.    DO NOT rely upon a UPS to give you surge protection.    The specs. on all that I have examined show that you can get 10 to 20 times more protection dollar wise from quality separate surge protectors.   Yes, I know, they keep the computer running, but do you want to work during a lightning storm???

Good Luck.                  Gene  Smith         Smithhill1@embarqmail.com 


Later tonight I read some of the material presented by Spinrite (above).  Do not know if it is applicable to your problem.   Gene.      Here is a copy:

The opportunity for the first test appeared only one day after we received our copy of version 6. An 80GB hard drive on one of our busy storage servers decided to pack it in. Prior to trying SpinRite we were still able to access the drive intermittently but it was impossible to copy data or run a file undelete utility. A handful of important files had been written to the drive subsequent to the last backup the previous night; files which we needed within about 48 hours, which meant that a professional data recovery service (with its three week backlog) was out of the question. We removed the drive and installed it in an identical hardware configuration, then booted SpinRite 6 from CD and did a Level 2 recovery (see above for recovery level definitions). After 22 hours, SpinRite completed its work and pronounced the drive fully recovered. We reinstalled the drive in the original server. It ran perfectly, the research assistant who had created the required files copied them off the drive and that was that. Nice job SpinRite 6. The drive was still running fine as we went to publication with this review two weeks after the incident. We used a level 2 setting in SpinRite: Recover Unreadable Data.

Last edited by Gene Smith (2007-11-23 07:51:13)