I can't.

It's a 3 minute project I made last year and I want to simply re-compress it minus the audio for use in a showreel and remove the corner logo.

The project and every single file associated with it is in it's own folder on an external terabyte drive, and the 705 items amount to 28.83 GB.

When I open the completed version of the FCP project, everything in the timeline is a red 'Media Offline' box - no surprise there, but when I try to re-connect (and I've tried a few different ways of searching and locating) - the connect button never turns clickable blue and I get that noise that is my laptops way of telling me I can't do it.

Since I completed the project back in May, my laptop has crashed a couple of times and had the internal hard drive replaced, however EVERYTHING for this project was backed up and is still there on the external terabyte.

I'm still not exactly sure how scratch disks work and I'm aware that deep in the heart of the laptop there are render files for everything I have done. I stay away from those because I don't know what I'm dealing with, but they won't be there now.

I was once told to keep all sound files, png's, all clips and the original PRIVATE folder from the main camera in one file, to keep everything together. I did exactly that, so what am I doing wrong?

Do I need to re-import the whole lot back into my laptop, all 28.83GB of it just for a simple compression?

Or is it something else?

When I open a project with disconnected files, I get the prompt in attachment #1. Clicking on Reconnect gives me attachment #2. If clicking on Search does not find the file, clicking on Locate lets you manually select the file with a file selection window that has an FCP section added at the bottom as in attachment #3. Sometimes, I have to uncheck the checkbox or fiddle with the other controls to force it to take the file I want. You need only do this for each unique directory as FCP will reconnect all the files in it's list of unconnected files as long as the Reconnect All Files checkbox is checked.

For the future, consider generate=ing a self contained Quicktime file of the final timeline. That represents the highest quality master you have. Later, you can recompress to suit without reconstructing the original project.

Well you've confirmed that I've been doing everything right, and so long as the files can be reconnected from an external drive then it must be some other issue. I've seen all the files listed in black against grey as in your 2nd (I think) attachment but the connect button refuses to turn blue.

Thanks again Les but it looks like i'll have to try a few other things. It's been a long day and my eyes have been staring at the screen for too long. I'll have another crack at it tomorrow.

One way to test if it's the external drive is to copy a couple files to your internal drive and try to reconnect them from there. When you click CHOOSE on the file selection screen, the files you connected will be listed on the bottom half of the second screen and the connect button should be enabled. This is a stretch but how is the external drive formatted? If it's NTFS, that is read only on the Mac and might be the problem.

I just know that it's Mac formatted, don't know how I would find out if it's NTFS.

In the meantime i'll try what you suggested. It's not a serious issue as it's for a showreel so no deadline but it is a concern.

It's a stretch that it's a disk issue. Select the hard disk icon and do command-i to show the Get Info window as shown in the attachment.

Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled) - Whatever that means.

When you say all files associated with the project are on you external drive, does that mean you copied them to the drive, or did you use the function inside Final Cut, with will save a project into a a folder? It will copy all associated files (scratch and render files also), so if you ever had to copy to a new machine, FC would have 100% of everything it needed to open.

I had a similar issue with a 90 second project, that contained 74 video clips, plus text, and minor graphics. I didn't use the FCP way of archiving and saving. I had all the footage, but had an audio issue, with the background music, and some of the text overlay, and when I needed it, I had to spend an our redoing some of those parts.

Oh dear.

No I didn't use the FCP way of archiving and saving, I will find out how to before archiving my current project.

Will I have to rebuild the entire project from a clean slate or is there another way?

It isn't required to use the FCP archiving. It doesn't do any magic annointing of the files. All it does is gather them together which I actually find annoying because it destroys how the files were organized.

If all you did was copy the original files that were imported into FCP, to a new location, FCP should be able to reconnect to them. This smells of a file system issue.

That's sort of good news and bad. I just tried to locate each file separately, but it has all the files located already I'm just unable to use the 'connect' button, they are all listed. If I need to get them back separately I don't know how to do it, or even if that is what I need to be doing.

Here's what I'm looking at.

ANd if you uncheck "Matched Name and Reel" then select the file Voice...", then click Choose, does Voice... show up in the bottom half of the grey window?

I tried to locate the 'voice' file but it's the only one not there and it must have been one I deleted that I didn't need anyway.

I have tried locating other files separately by going to 'Reconnect Media' but again, i'll see stuff listed in the grey window but nothing results in the connect button turning blue.

Well you can do without the render files... those can be regenerated from the timeline but you do need the original Clip #106 file. I wonder if the # character is causing a glitch.

Also, did you try copying one of the source files to your internal hard disk and selecting it as the file to reconnect to?

No I haven't tried that because I assumed that if the project file and all it's predecessors is on the external terabyte too then it won't make a difference.

That said, anything is worth a shot.

I'll give it a shot as soon as I'm home - really hope it works.

Also, in the grasping at straws category, Try this:
Rename the video file on the Hard disk so it doesn't use "#" in it's name
Do the Reconnect Media
After you click Locate, select Show All Files in the drop down
Unselect "Match name and reel"
Select the file you just renamed
Click Choose.
See if the file is listed in the bottom half of the Reconnect Media Window and the Connect button is selectable