Right so I don't really know how to Google search this, or narrow down my search.

Basically I currently save my editing wedding video projects on to an internal hard drive and then back up by copy and pasting all the relevant files and folders that i'm working with, including the Sony Vegas project file on to portable external hard drives.

My question is, if my internal hard drive where to one day fail on me I would then have to use my backup drive.

But then if I opened the Sony Vegas project file in my back up drive I would have the tedious job of finding the video files, overlays etc on my back up hard drive as the hard drive letter / pathway would change.

Is there a quick way for Sony Vegas to basically find all the files on my external hard drive without me having to go through each individual file on the time line 1 by 1 ?

Time is money. And when you have multiple projects to work on it makes all the difference.

Any help would be appreciated, or suggestions on improving my workflow.

EDIT: I guess if I just replaced the faulty drive and gave it the same drive letter as it originally had, I wouldn't have this problem ?

simply save project to an external drive WITH copy media ticked... you can then happily load it from the ex hd...

The project must be saved in the root of a folder containing all media. Then Vegas opens the project using the relative root to the files without any questions.

Thank you very much guys.

Even in the worst case, IF you're using consistent directory/folder structures in projects, when you re-link the first piece of media Vegas will automagically find other media in the same folder.

But, the worst worst case, where media is any old place, is tedious indeed!

"Copy media with project..." Is a good technique, but I don't use it. For my purposes, across multiple external drives, moving archives from place to place, working on different PCs (different drive letters), doing my backups and archiving outside of Vegas seems to make the most sense - with very occasional need to relink some media.

Turns out not to be so hard or time-consuming to relink, mostly. And my mid-project daily backups are easy - just drag the project file (and any new graphics or whatever) to the backup drive. I also do this when doing "save as" to archive a particular version of a project before trying something new, eg. If I feel I might want to go back to the 11am version that was used a particular keying filter or whatever.

Just presenting an alternative view here; both approaches have merits, whatever works best for one's circumstances...

Thanks Seth

Well yes, I haven't had the need to access my backed up files as of yet and touchwood I never will need too.

But it occured to me the other day that it may not be so easy to get back to work in my projects should I have too ...

I did not know Vegas will do a smart search after you link the first file. Sounds good to me.

Thank you all for the help.

One additional thing I do if I re-use an older element in a new project, is to first copy and past that old element into the new project folder. Then use the new copy in the new project.

That way if the old element link gets changed or deleted, you won't have to be looking for it because you used a new copy of it in your newer project files.

I don't usually do this with large raw footage files, just smaller elements with file sizes that take up little room but could end up being an important lost item if the newer project needs a further update and you thought you were safe deleting or archiving the older project and its files onto a different drive.

You can also build a separate folder to archive useful elements you've created from many past projects. Again, the file size of duplicating these items is minimal, but having a known location that is maintained long-term on your working drive can be helpful when under a time crunch or re-opening a project to modify and that logo you created in 4 different sizes last year is exactly what you need right this second but that project you created it for has been archived.