Deleted project file...YIKES!

Hi,

A buddy of mine was working pro bono on a project that has been on hiatus (1 year). It was not clear if it was ever going to get finished. So 3-5 months ago, he deleted the media files including the PROJECT FILE and autosave...really dumb move. Now the producer wants to finish it, the producer has the media files but is there any way to get that project file back?

Data Rescue or send drive to a lab to try to recover it?

Thanks

Do you not have an Autosave vault? Restore the project from there.



www.strypesinpost.com

Deleted the file and autosave 3 to 5 months ago? I'd say that proverbial snowball needs mentioning.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Your friend needs to learn a bit about file management. Deleting his project files -- all of them -- had probably saved him the amount of drive space equivalent to, oh, 20 minutes of DV Standard Def video. Deleting project files is never worth it except for cleanliness, to reduce the list of project files available so it doesn't look so confusing.

And also, if he never did manual backups on top of the Autosave, he shouldn't be an editor. If the film had been on hiatus and he didn't want to deal with the files, he should have forced the producer to buy a drive for the project and transferred everything over, and then handed the drive to the producer, with a backup (one copy is not an archive). And if he were going to delete the project because it was eating up his personal storage space, he should have sent a warning to the production (or a bill, saying, "Unless you pick up your files in four weeks, I will be forced to delete everything" ). If they had ignored such a warning, then it's their own coffin.


www.derekmok.com

There's a slim chance there might be another autosaved version somewhere,
especially with people who are a bit careless with the way they set up FCP, the Autosave vault could be anywhere, or in many places.
do a search for "Autosave"., or indeed the project name.

very slim chance.

Re file recovery: Jude put it best.


nick

Wow. I didn't see that. The Autosave vault would be one bet.

Data Rescue or drive recovery is more effective if you have not written on the hard drive since the file was deleted.

Your other issue is the media files. Looking at how he does archiving, he probably has no back up for the media files either, I would presume, so if he is working tapeless, and there are no back ups of the camera mags or at the very least, QT movies, the only option is to reshoot.



www.strypesinpost.com

> Wow. I didn't see that. The Autosave vault would be one bet.

He said he deleted the Autosave Vault, too.
People who aren't paying attention to Autosave usually leave it set to the default setting. Which means most of the time, it's in one place. Worth trying, but again, if he had taken the time to actually delete his Autosave Vault, it's a Hail-Mary pass. He should not be getting the producer's hopes up.


www.derekmok.com

UPDATE:

He used Data Rescue 3 to search for a Final Cut Project file. The software found a bunch of them but they won't open in Final Cut Pro. The program responds "Unable to open project file". Is there a way to get this project file to work somehow?


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Try Digital Rebellion's Pro Maintenance Tools. It's designed for something like this. I never need it because I backup like a maniac.

> The software found a bunch of them but they won't open in Final Cut Pro.

I find this highly suspect. A bunch of FCP project files won't open? If a project file gets corrupted, that only means projects saved after that corruption will be affected, and that also usually means it happened in between the last successful editing session and this one (unless the project has been idle for a long time). If project files over a large range of dates all fail to open, that would make me suspect either a corrupted storage drive, or your software.

Have you run diagnostics on the storage drive where the project files reside? I would also move the project file to the system drive, take all media offline, then open the project file with its media offline. If it opens, that tells you the project file itself isn't the culprit.

Your friend seems to be so unfamiliar with FCP operation that I would also suspect that the files he found weren't actual project files. Have you seen his system in person?


www.derekmok.com

He sent me the file, it is a FCP project file. Gave Pro Maintenance Tools a try, it still will not open. Perhaps, someone will have better luck with the file, which can be downloaded from:

[www.dropbox.com]

I dl'd it, repaired it, reset the permissions and it still wouldn't open here. Is busted.

Did he not provide a project file with all the media the producer has? Did he ever email it? Did he ever do a computer back up? Ever have an asst. working on it?

Did he even make a QT of what he had when he was done?

Tim,

The answer to all those questions is NO. Just a really unfortunate and stupid move on his part, he will be in editors jail for a long time.

Thank you to all who tried to help, but I think there's no hope. Long story short, always back up the project file, and as Derek mentioned let the producers know if you're going to delete the project.