Hunting down a corrupt media file

Hello Again,

I cannot open my project file
I cannot open autosaves of my project file
I trashed prefs, repaired permissions

I have followed the excellent directions from the ken stone web page about restoring a corrupt project found here
[www.kenstone.net]

...which essentially says to
1 - disconnect media
2 - open file
3 - close sequences
4 - do a save project as...
but this didn't work for me, the project still wouldn't open...

when i try to open the project

1 - it stops at 3% for 60-90 seconds while my drive flickers and becomes noisy
2 - it then continues opening but stops at 48% and opens no more...

Is it a valid assumption to believe that there are corrupt media files on the drive - one that is read (and overcome) at 3% and one that cannot be overcome at 48%?

I've tried opening 10 times and always the same actions at 3% and 48%.

I read further on the Ken Stone website and he talks about tracking down the corrupt file. His suggestion is to reconnect each bin seperately then quit and relaunch FCP.

This sounds great but my project is enormous - it's a feature with thousands of files (and hundreds of bins)...

Can anyone suggest another way to hunt down the corrupt files?

(Assuming that this is the problem in the first place)

Thanks
SA

More info to thicken the plot on this situation -

I closed FCP and went to the drive that is having trouble. I tried to open the quicktime files on the drive and NONE would open. I get the spinning beach ball.

Should I now consider that it might be the drive that is corrupt?

And if so, any ideas about troubleshooting a corrupt drive would be appreciated.

If I transfer the media to another drive do I risk corrupting the new drive?

Thanks
SA

The night from hell continues: 65% of the media files on my drive DO OPEN - I was wrong - so now I have 35% that won't open - would a solution to be to redigitize these files? It's about 100 gigs.

Should I try disc warrior on this drive?

Thanks
SA

have you copied any of the files off to another drive to see if they open of that?

If a drive has gone far enough south, running directory replacement now could actually push it over the edge. I had a dying system drive once that TechTool Pro made completely dead where it used to be just wonky, because the diagnostics stalled midway through.

From the way it sounds, it actually seems to me you may have a hardware problem, not file corruption. The sectors where certain files reside may be dead or moribund. I'd try Nick's suggestion and copy everything to another drive first. However, before doing that, I'd first copy one project file to an internal drive, then disconnect the drive (don't just turn it off -- pull out the cables) and see if the project file on the internal drive will open. If so, then you can ascertain that the project file itself may be okay. This is basically a more drastic version of the approach outlined in the Ken Stone document -- it forces a problematic drive to become unavailable, which sometimes "frees" a project file of the shackles of a bad drive or bad media.

Did you ever perform routine manual archives of your project files to another storage location other than your active drive? If not, do it now -- even if some of your files are corrupt, you still need a safeguard just in case.

If you successfully backup everything from the potentially bad drive, then run Disk First Aid and DiskWarrior and see what happens.


www.derekmok.com

A less drastic measure that has worked for me is to make a copy of the project file and put it on a different partition.

Control-click the FCP project file, open a different partition and then command-v paste it. Then launch from that pasted version - once the project opens, then Save As, name it something slightly different back to your Documents folder.

This tends to work when all else fails - which it sounds like you have experienced!

Good luck.

This definitely sounds like your drive is dying... not a project corruption issue. The project can't open because it can't read the files on the drive.

You don't say if this drive is external or not, or even if it's separate from the system drive (which it should be). If it is external, disconnect it. Then try opening your project. That should help you determine that this is a drive issue and not a project corruption issue.

If you're saying this is the ONLY place your project lives, then you're screwed! No sympathy for not practicing safe computing.

Finally, you know that FCP can work with multiple projects open simultaneously. As your edit moves forward, it's much more efficient to put sequences ONLY in a separate project to keep the project sizes managable.

Good luck.

mark

But if his drive is dying, then after he does this--

1 - disconnect media
2 - open file
3 - close sequences
4 - do a save project as...

-- an old Charles Roberts strategy which worked well for me on a couple occasions-- he says he doens't get past step 2, the project still won't open?

Hoping it *is* a disk issue, since he seems to have luck connecting up to a point, I'm inclined to treat the suspect disk with Diskwarrior before connecting.

I say DW because I had bad problems using TechTool for disk directory repair--it doesn't seem to play well with DW's work. I can't be more specific-- TT's disk optimiz/defragment seems to work well. But I when I run into files which don't open I like to try DW directory repair.

- Loren
Today's FCP keytip:
Set Video In & Out separate from Audio with Control I & O !

Final Cut Studio 2 KeyGuide? Power Pack.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

I installed FCStudio 2 when I got my computer back in June, '07, but never used it until now (busy on projects using Shake, which works fine). I brought in this weekend a FCP project I had been working on at my home (on another fully licensed version of FCStudio 2). The project opened, and was running very sluggishly so I quit and rebooted. Now Final Cut does not launch--it goes through startup with the splash screen, then just clicks off. I tried trashing the pList and rebooting with Safe Boot and verifying permissions. I downloaded and istgalled all updates from Software Update. I even did a custom re-install of FCP. Nothing works.

Any suggestions?