I'm impressed with Windows 7, much quicker and more stable than Vista and far better than XP.
Regards David

Oh Yes
I had same problem it was only the fact I was too scared to clean the sensor myself that saved me. Problem is I often think the worst when a few seconds careful thought can save effort and stress.

Well I too love my K7, its a long way off clocking 100k but performs very well. Although my K5ii is better in low light most of the photos taken with them cannot be told apart.
I do hope you've been unlucky, it might even be worth dropping a line to Pentax because although the warranty is well out most manufacturers don't like to hear of unexpected failures and may be sympathetic.
Regards David

Oh and as for memory card size; I would choose 16gb or 32gb as you always have the reserve capacity if you end up taking more photos than expected and or the odd movie.
As has already been said don't put all you eggs in one basket (Or photos on one card) because they do occasionally get broken or go wrong. Better to download them ASAP and take several cards if on a long trip or covering a special event like a wedding.
Regards David

Hi Aura
I've been looking at the photos you are posting and they are very good. It would appear you are putting in a fair amount of editing effort into some, which is paying dividends. In particular some of the abstract photos are very good and colourful.
Its probable some of you landscapes could be improved if you started with RAW but your getting such good results I wouldn't bother to much about rushing down the RAW road, its always there as an option if you want to play with some RAW files when you have time. I only use RAW because my lens isn't that sharp and to make up for my failings as a photographer.
Regards David

My problem is sometimes if you ask PSE to import to many from the card to PC many imported to the PC may appear broken and unusable. Like fool when PSE said all had been imported OK I let it delete the images from the card. Although the images appeared broken they were later usable no RAW editor would open them, that's until I right clicked on them in Windows Explorer. This allowed me to open them in PSE editor, even without editing them they immediately became viewable and useable in the normal way. Doing this must have cleared some erroneous glitch on the broken images.
So far I have never had broken photos on the camera memory card, as a precaution although I use up to 32gb cards I try not to put too many images on one card in case it should fail and loose all my photos.
NOTE
A friend of mine used Windows to delete some images from a K5 memory card however the camera still thought the images existed and displayed an error for them. Moral use the camera to delete images.
Regards David

I use Photoshop downloader to import images from the memory card and don't allow it to delete the images from the card. Recently for some sad reason I trusted the downloader when it said all images had imported OK and allowed it to delete the image files from the card.
About half of the images were broken and could not be viewed with Photoshop Organizer or other RAW file viewers, various recovery software tools found lots of other images on the card were usable but did not find the ones I wanted in a usable state.
I then played with various image repair tools on the faulty imported files but to no avail. However I noticed I could right click and open them in PSE Editor, once I had opened them in the editor the broken files became usable. Even before any actual editing the thumbnails appeared and they could be viewed with PSE Organiser.
I went on to edit them and save as JPEG with no problem. And the original unedited RAW files are now usable as normal.
What made them appear broken and why the editor made them usable I don't know but there is a moral to this story.
1) Don't delete images files from the camera card until your very sure they have imported OK.
2) Set Photoshop Downloader to never delete from the card.
3) If your a fool like me right click on the broken file/s to see if it/they will open in the editor.

Your camera software probably has a copy of SillyPIX (Pentax branded) I hate it but others here seem to like it.[/quote]Never got Silkypix to work for me either, its far to complicated and there's very little help that helped me.
NOTE
dougf8 has come up with a version of the software name which may or may not be misspelt but its a much name than the original.
I hope we aren't confusing you too much. If you have time and patience give RAWS a try but if you happy with your JPEG results then that's all that matters.
All the best David

Yes RAWS do hold much more detail but they haven't had any editing done by the camera to brighten them. RAW images viewed on the camera screen often look fairly good. On a computer however you will see the RAW image the camera recorded with no white balance contrast or colour compensation. Its up to you to edit them to reflect the colours the impact and the sharpness you remember or required. In camera JPEGs usually do this fairly well but can make them too vivid or too dull or even too sharp, usually but not always and with patience you can do a much better job.

How to select RAW+
Follow instructions on page 140 of your manual
or
The quickest way is to switch the camera on, press the info button and you should have a menu with various picture capture settings and options. (see your manual page 26.) Don't worry if some of this screens options are not adjustable that's because certain settings cannot be changed in certain shooting modes.
Then use the 4 way controller to highlight the JPEG box probably LH corner of this menu then use the rear wheel to scroll between RAW, JPEG or RAW+

Using RAW benefits are;
Very poor original RAW photo converted into a JPEG but un-edited
https://www.pentaxuser.com/photo/user-12009/tree-creeper-73482

Edited version
https://www.pentaxuser.com/photo/user-12009/tree-creeper-73483

I know the final version is not a master piece but it is now worth looking at and keeping.
Regards David