It all began a few months ago when I opened a PSD file in Photoshop CS and got this long paragraph in a dialog box telling me that my file was damaged due to a disk error (etc etc) and I opened it anyway. There were some funky pixels missing or discolored, but it didn’t happen again. Since that time, I have had innumerable instances just like the first one, only once they’re damaged, there’s no going back.
I work as a package designer on a G4 (mirrored-door) system running the latest version of Panther with 1.25GB of RAM. None of my colleagues are having the same issues at all. I’ve re installed photoshop – which actually recovered my files (wasn’t telling me that they were damaged any more) for about two weeks. Then this week it all started happening again. I had been relying on the fact that I could just re install everything again and they’d be restored again – but NOT THIS TIME. I am nearly at the end of my rope. The thought of re-creating these intense photoshop documents makes me want to drive a nail through my eye.
I know this is happening to others too – but there seems to be not much in the way of advice. It seems like some kind of cruel joke. I’ve even installed a THIRD internal hard drive in my computer and worked strictly off of that (since it first started on my 60GB storage drive) because PS tells you that the file is damaged due to a damaged drive (disk cable, blah blah blah) so this was an attempt to rule that out – which I believe I did.
This problem has persisted on 3 drives – original HD (80gb), second internal drive (60gb) and a third internal drive (20gb). Something tells me that the odds of all 3 drives being "bad" is pretty unlikely.
You say that "None of my colleagues are having the same issues at all." leads me to believe you have hardware problems. take it in to the shop now before you loose any more data. Its not Photoshop or everyone would be having the same issues.
Wade you’re wrong. The issue you are refering to was .PSB format with files over 2GIG.
Okay, i just tried resaving one of my damaged files as a layered tif (had never thought of that – thanks) and after i closed it and reopened it, I did not get the damaged file shpeel for once. The file however, is still damaged. I guess i can’t have the best of both worlds…
I truly appreciate the advice – but I hope to get a real fix someday. I can dream, right?
I don’t have the liberty of sending away my computer for 2 weeks of down time at my job, and it’s not an easy thing to set up here in rural Maine. Would you like to refer me to a MAC computer repairman that can wisk away all my worries?
I teach in a MAC lab that is networked and I have experienced an error message saying "Could not open "FILE NAME>PSD" Because of an unexpected end of file was encountered". The file when opened was lost. Anybody have insight on why this happened and how to prevent it.
Rachel – this is the lounge section of the photoshop forum which tends to be more informal. You could try re-asking your question in the main photoshop forum to get further insight.
I don’t think buko is being harsh, so much as insistent that if you don’t have your computer checked out you will probably experience this problem again. You say you feel like driving a nail through your eye. Well, which is better … sending the computer out to a technician for a week or having a nail in your eye? In the interim you may be able to arrange to use a loaner (computer, not eye). A bad internal cable may also be causing the problem, or the connections themselves may be bad, so your drives could all be in perfect condition and you’ll still have hardware problems that your computer reads as disk errors.
Rachel, I have lost 30 gigs worth of data on a brand new drive. there one minute gone the next. although this type of thing is not common place it does happen. Saving damaged files is not the norm. If you have done all regular maintainence and the problem still presists then I would suspect a hard ware problem.
You said it yourself
None of my colleagues are having the same issues at all.
its not the software.
I’ve re installed photoshop – which actually recovered my files (wasn’t telling me that they were damaged any more) for about two weeks. Then this week it all started happening again.
something is corrupting the disks. it could be bad RAM you can test this yourself by removing all but one stick does the problem happen. move on to the next stick and so on. You think I’m being harsh, just think how hash it will be if you loose everything. You came here asking for help, I’m trying to give it to you. If you don’t want it just say so and I’ll go away. But sticking your head in the sand and ignoring a problem won’t fix it. Saving as a tiff is not a solution.
I don’t mean to be harsh either, but please listen to Buko. It may be inconvenient to have your computer checked out by a competent technician, but the alternative is losing files and many hours of work, whether in rural Maine, Los Angeles or Bangladesh.
Jonf – thanks for seeing the lighter side of things. It would probably be tougher to find a loaner eye than a computer.
I’ll have to see what I can do about sending away my computer. Would I need to include all drives that are being used? All of my work is stored on the two internal drives for safety’s sake, so would I be able to keep those so I could still work (providing I got a loaner computer)? Should I get apple on the phone? This computer was purchased back in February… seems as though I could still get some phone support, right?
I do appreciate everyone’s insight. I am not ignoring the problem, or else why would I have posted in the first place?
We used to have a contract (at a former job) with an IT service company that gave us free loaners if they had to take away a workstation for service. I’m not sure what your situation is in Maine, or what service options are available to you. If you can’t get a loaner, you may be able to rent a workstation, or even borrow something from a cohort.
If the drives are internal I personally would recommend sending them with the computer, but BACK EVERYTHING UP. (If they’re external drives that may be your whole problem right there … see Ramon’s post above). If you don’t already have everything backed up on CD, or dvd, or a remote server, now would be a good time to do that. If nothing else, it will prevent you from losing all your work in the future. And it’s absolutely imperitive if you send your hard drive out for servicing.
Again, good luck, and hopefully you’ll get this settled quickly and cheaply!
Large drives are rather cheap compared to loosing all your data. get an external firewire twice as big as however much data you have. ( that extra space will come in handy if you need to transport a large number of files some time).If you get a loaner you can work on your files or take the drive to a place you can work on them.
you can also clone your system so you can get back to the same place you were at before you sent it off. just incase they wipe the system drive.
As far as not having backup hardware (while this one’s troubleshot), try going out on a job sometime without a spare camera or spare flash…or working with a flaky camera that tends to go out of flash sync (it goes in the shop pretty quick, right?)…
To all who have posted… I abandoned forum help around 1:00 pm last Friday, so I did miss several posts (but I appreciate all of the help!). I got on the phone with Apple 3 times that afternoon (after they had me do several "tests") and eventually an Apple Technical Specialist told me to erase my hard drive. Goody. Just what I wanted to do.
So, Monday’s project involved me backing up all the junk on my hard drive to CD, removing my two other internal hard drives and then writing my original hard drive to zeros.
To make a long story short, the very first file I created on my "clean" system gave me that exact same message. I wanted to cry. But then – aha! We removed my extra memory that didn’t come installed… PRESTO!!! even though all memory passed the hardware test, it clearly is the culprit. A very strange episode to say the least…. Although I have to re-do a lot of my previous work, at least I’m pretty confident that this won’t be a problem again. My coworker did a search and was reading about newer model G4s and problems with Memory & Jaguar….
Did you miss the part where I said that I ABANDONED forum help BEFORE I read about 8 of the posts???
Wow, you need to get over yourself. I believe you were pretty insistant on me getting new hard drives. If I had done that, I’d be in the same sinking boat.
post #14 I told you how to find bad RAM post #17 45 minutes after I posted a solution for you, you were most likely ignoring me for being harsh. so you ended up wasting a day.
Buko-"Harsh but right. Rachel, had you followed my advice you could have saved yourself a lot of work. Funny how folk like to do things the hard way first."
C’mon, no one like being told: "I told ya so." Especially after an ordeal like this.
I did read all the posts. And I know how difficult it can be to accept that a problem is not gonna be "an easy fix." We’ve all felt her frustration. Yes, Buko was right. But he didn’t need to reprimand her in the end.
Dan I have gone throgh the ordeal thats why I know the drill. I sorry I didn’t give fluffy happy advice, Getting to the point is what I’m trying to do. She had a problem, from past experience I knew what the possible problems maybe. for this I was accused of being harsh. which is why my solution was ignored. I felt this needed to be pointed out.
I hear you. I’m all for getting to the point and even being adamant when you know you’re right. It just felt to me like you were rubbing it in when your advice proved to be right. Sorry, I shouldn’t have piped in. This is a user forum, not a tea party π
The RAM problem may not be so clear cut folks I wasn’t going to post again but I will point out what has been learnt over at the Illustrator Forum.
It would appear that it is not exactly bad RAM as much as mismatched RAM. Now it also appears that for some people they were not having this problem and then a couple of Apples security updates rolled around and then there you are.
Some people were having a problem with AI CS crashing a lot for instance Linda well some of those people found out though they had the same problem as she did that it turned out to be mismatched RAM and once they undid that the crashing stopped.
I mentioned it a long time ago and as i would be something to expect. I was booed out of the thread. It was an AI CS bug and not their configurations or hardware.
Oh, in the case of Linda her problem of course was different. She had a special fix created by Adam and I bet even with that fix it still crashes.
This maybe something that Apple is doing, not supporting third party RAM. Now keep in mind that I am not saying it is going to happen to you as well. Just keep your eyes open and think about recent Security Updates when it happens should it happen. Good luck!
One more thing in my case I don’t care if you listen or not so if you think this is a load then never mind.
The mismatched issue is indeed a factor sometimes. On my old FrankenMac there was an incompatibility with the ColorVision Spyder software (it would inevitably hang at a certain point in the calibration procedure) and much later I was able to trace it to a single 256MB RAM module that was just different from the other two. What was interesting was that the Spyder hardware puck and the OptiCal software worked just fine if only that one RAM stick was left on the mother board, or if it was removed and the other two put in place. You just couldn’t mix that one module with either or both of the other two, but it worked fine by itself.
I had no clue but developed a hunch after a visual inspection of the RAM sticks, when I noticed one had different inscriptions on it.
All that being said. we have moved back to 7, Never having an issue in 7. In 8, especially with .psb files we were seeing file corruption’s described as above. We thought the same, HD issue, Ram issue, connection or cord issue. None of the above applied to us. Corruption or damaged usually un openable files Happened on several machines that we switched out rams and drives and never found a common to the problem other than PS 8. Waiting with others for ps 8 .1 .psb fix. good luck
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