I recently erased a hard drive by mistake. Yes. I really did.

So I took it round to my computer guy, Les Mannos, in the SF Valley and he recovered the material to another drive.

It all looks fine and the files are all the same size and the icons are there. So I thought I had dodged a bullet but ...

When I went to open the only really important file - a 72 gig Quicktime export file - neither FCP, nor SOuntrack Pro, not MPEG Streamclip nor anything would get it to open. It sits there saying that QT does not recognize the file.

Since the file size has remained the same, it makes me think that the actual track is probably intact, but that the information (wrapper?) is corrupted.

Can any of you boffins out there tell me if this file can undergo surgery and, if so, who could do it? I can pay a nominal fee.

Best wishes, and thanks for reading this,

Harry.

The only advice I can offer is to purchase a copy (there is a download version) of DiskWarrior 4.1; if it's a directory/file error issue then chances are it can fix it. If not you'll most likely need to rebuild the sequence.

Thanks very much for your advice.

Harry.

It seems that you get that error (in some cases) when the QT video is incomplete. Which is really annoying because if the file size is so large then something should be there!
Download VLC, a free video player, and see if it works on there. Unfortunately I don't know if VLC can play FCP .mov's but it certainly can play everything else.

Thanks for your reply, but I've already tried that App. Didn't open.

I'm currently working with a guy who is doing advanced surgery on the file. Last ditch attempt.

Best

Harry