Lost footage?

Hello,
I hope someone can help me, because I'm puzzled. I have a dual G5 with two internal drives. The second drive is a Hitachi Deskstar 250 GB. I use it as the media drive.

I've been working with FCP HD on a project for sometime. This evening, in prep for tomorrow, I decided to make some room in the media drive by removing an old project that has been taking up space. When I went into the media drive I realized that the capture scratch folder was missing. How could that be?

I immediately opened my current project expecting it to be offline. But to my surprise, nothing was off line. Then, I did a search for specific clips that are part of my current project. Nothing showed up. The clips are not there.

I am confused. If the footage is gone, shouldn't my project show up as offline? Shouldn't the link be broken to the original footage?

I went back into FCP and played the timeline. I CAN see the footage and listen to it. None of the clips in the bins are offline. Everything looks and plays normally.

Can someone help meunderstand what is going on? I appreciate your help. Thank you in advance to all who respond.

--CK

I'd search for another Capture Scratch folder. It's possible to have multiple CS folders.

Or if your project is all one big render, then it's referring to the render files in the timeline, oh scratch that...you said all your clips are online in the Browser?

The footage has to be there somewhere! It could be that it's not in a Capture Scratch folder. It doesn't HAVE to be in there, that's just the default. It SHOULD be in there, but as long as FCP knows where it is, it can be almost anywhere.

> Then, I did a search for specific clips that are part of my current project.
> Nothing showed up. The clips are not there.

Did you search for the names of clips as they appear in FCP, or the real media file names? If you (or any previous editor) had a habit of renaming things in FCP, for example by using subclips, you won't find the FCP item names in the system. Use APPLE-9 to call up item properties and check the real media file names. Also, CONTROL-click your clips and use the "Reveal in Finder" option. That will point you to where each clip is being stored.

Thank you Deb and Derek for your responses. I found my footage.

I followed as you suggested Derek and it directed me to where it was. Although I did not get the "Reveal in Finder" option when I CTRL-clicked. But, I was directed to it through the item properties under source. Is the "Reveal in Finder" a new option in FCP5? I have FCP4.5

Thanks a bunch to both. I appreciate it.

> Is the "Reveal in Finder" a new option in FCP5?

I think you might be right, CK. Strangely, I also have FCP4.5, but I've worked on two FCP5 stations and got used to Reveal in Finder. I've never had to use this function on my own machine because my file management tends to be watertight. Still, a good feature for FCP5, I think.