Help! Almost none of the footage and none of the sequences of my 1st exterrnal hard drive can be found--the footage all has that red gash through it. I thought I backed it up on a mirror drive but the mirror says the same thing--either that or I didn't do it right. Any Advice for retrieving the footage--it's months of complicated work so I'd pay a lot of money to get it back if it's still on there.

PS I've got lots of drives hooked up to every oriface of my G5 and the trouble seemed to start when a friend tried to help me turn the main sequence into a DVD demo reel.

Any and all advice I'd be eternally grateful for:(

Not a Mac user, so can't help you directly, but would suggest:

Calm down (tho' under the circumstances, a bit like asking a drowning man to keep drinking to lower the water level!) and give as detailed and thorough account of your system, software, circumstances and workflow as you can, to help others to figure out where the problem lies.

CS

Have you tried opening the actual drive in finder and seeing if you can locate the files that way? If you are seeing the Media offline prompt in your FCP browser you should see if the files are available on your drive. If your drive isn't available make sure it's got power to it, maybe your friend stepped on one of the many cables you have protruding from your Mac. If your drive is plugged in and doesn't have an indicator light you can always put your ear to it to listen for the motor spinning.

I've noticed sometimes FCP "loses" your links and you have to reconnect manually, it's been rare for me but it can happen. It seems that the program thinks the file name or location changed and can't find the original. I find if you go to File>>>Reconnect media>>Locate... and uncheck the "matched name and reel only" box, it allows FCP to locate it.

I'd start with that if you haven't already checked.

Betsy,

Did you use Media Manager to move or copy the project at all? Do you have more than one version of the project file itself, possibly causing a conflict between new and old versions?

See screengrabs about the process below...

During the reconnect process, make sure you don't accidentally hit the "forget files" radio button. In the rush to find the files many don't read that first screen and instinctively hit the button thinking that "yes, those are the files I want..." and instead FC stops looking for them. If you've accidentally done that and then re-saved your project then that is one reason why you now can't seem to find the files - automatically.

During the search for the files, use the "locate" button and just have FC search the entire drive - make sure "all files" is checked.

If FC isn't able to find the files automatically, use the "search" button and look for the files manually. Use the file-names you see in the timeline to match the missing asset.

If you still can't find your assets after this, let us know.

What type of external hard drive are the files on? If you cannot locate them in Finder, you may want to think about getting a copy of Disk Warrior - it has saved me many times before.

You might try DiskWarrior to rebuild the drive. But, as Robert suggests, it was probably an error in Media Manager and I bet you will find it.

Peter

I got so upset that night my body decided to come down with a first class case of the flu, which I'm still laid up with.

Thanks so much for your coming to my lil ol aid.

I made some notes in response to your request for more detail but taking your advice I was able to I don't know--trick (?) the original hard drive into giving me back the original capture files (I tried so many of the suggestions I don't know which one worked)--or all of them but one important one. And it has a lot of the silent sequence clips in the sequence file but all that rendering can't be done again without the one missing clip. So I dug in and called up the original tape on which I recorded the now-missing clip. However that clip is cut up and cropped and altered in speed a million different ways--and it would be impossible for me to re-guess all those little decisions I made to make it fit perfectly into the extended montage again UNLESS I can somehow tell the computer that this is the missing clip it's been looking for and wherever on the timeline it shows the clip as not online to go ahead and use the clip I'm about to load onto the computer from the tape again--is there a way I can do that? A way to just tell the computer that that it can find the clip it's missing under "x" name of the the footage I re-enter?

Also, if I do get out of this mess and am able to reconstruct the sequence, is there a way I can really REALLY save it as a sequence of its own rather than as a set of separate capture files and render decisions? In other words, if I've got sequence that at times has 14 layers of video piled on top of each other, can I at some point have a safety copy of it in a new file where all those layers are merged into one layer of video?

I know I'm not expressing myself very well but it still feels like a 500 pound man with an electric blanket diaper is sitting on my chest. Alack, the flu, the proud, the marines...

Now the damn thing keeps getting stuck at "Preparing Video for Display" again.

Betsy,

Did you use Media Manager to move or copy the project at all? Do you have more than one version of the project file itself, possibly causing a conflict between new and old versions?

See screengrabs about the process below...

During the reconnect process, make sure you don't accidentally hit the "forget files" radio button. In the rush to find the files many don't read that first screen and instinctively hit the button thinking that "yes, those are the files I want..." and instead FC stops looking for them. If you've accidentally done that and then re-saved your project then that is one reason why you now can't seem to find the files - automatically.

During the search for the files, use the "locate" button and just have FC search the entire drive - make sure "all files" is checked.

If FC isn't able to find the files automatically, use the "search" button and look for the files manually. Use the file-names you see in the timeline to match the missing asset.

If you still can't find your assets after this, let us know.

I swear I tried over and over in every possible way with this but I never found ol' Untitled 53-46 in any of the drives.

And yes I have copied the material over to other drives and sometimes within the same timeline I'll have bits clips from each drive--is that suicidal?

Also, if I do get out of this mess and am able to reconstruct the sequence, is there a way I can really REALLY save it as a sequence of its own rather than as a set of separate capture files and render decisions? In other words, if I've got sequence that at times has 14 layers of video piled on top of each other, can I at some point have a safety copy of it in a new file where all those layers are merged into one layer of video?

I'm pretty sure in order to do that you have to export the sequence. So you could just make it into a QT with the same settings as your project. Then you can import it back into another sequence in it's entirety. At least that's the way I've done it in the past.


And yes I have copied the material over to other drives and sometimes within the same timeline I'll have bits clips from each drive--is that suicidal?


While not exactly suicidal, it sure adds complexity and allows for colossal catastrophes. It's usually best to organize your footage into discrete folders and subfolders on the same disk.

I swear I tried over and over in every possible way with this but I never found ol' Untitled 53-46 in any of the drives.

And yes I have copied the material over to other drives and sometimes within the same timeline I'll have bits clips from each drive--is that suicidal?

It won't be of any help for this project, but I would highly suggest getting with an Apple certified trainer and spend a few hours learning proper media management. Normally I'd offer my services but it's too complicated to do over the phone and this short a lesson wouldn't justify a plane trip out.

Get those media management skills in line and you'll have far smoother sailing in the future and, your understanding of the software environment as a whole will greatly benefit.

Thanks, guys, does anyone happen to know about the other question--the big one of the moment--is there a way I can tell the computer to use the clip I just re-entered into the computer for all the little fragments of the clip it deleted?

Could you clarify a bit - what do you mean you "re-entered"? Do you mean you re-captured the same tape or clip?

Betsy,

I assume you want to take a newly captured clip and have it replace the ones you are missing. Select the clip you are missing in the browser or timeline. Ctrl-click and select Reconnect Media. Click on the search button. Unclick "matched name and reel" box and you should be able to select any file to replace the one you are missing. Hope this helps.

Jon Schwartz
CA Video Productions