How to recuperate lost clips on an SxS card

[Francois Dormoy]

I transferred the full contents of a 8 Gb Sony SxS card into my hard drive without checking the files, since this process is done frequently with no problem. And I then erased the contents of the card using the Erase command from the Sony EX1 camera.
But I realised that the contents of the directory on the hard drive had only a couple of clips.
Now that I have already erased the contents of the card, is there a way to "undo" or re3cuperate the clips I erased too hastily?

[Tuomas Sebastien]

I once was able to return lost photos after accidentaly deletion from CF card with some undelete program I had simply googled to find. So the data probably is still there. You shouldn't record anything to that card before attempting to restore the files.

[Francois Dormoy]

Thanks for the info. I found the program WinUndelete that I installed, but it did not work for that precise purpose. I cant tell you why.

[Andy Nickless]

I make it a rule to copy my BPAV files to TWO HDs before I erase the SxS cards but of course this may not have helped in your case.

I don't check the transferred files though - never had a problem (Apple Mac).

What's puzzling is how the data was lost in the transfer.

[Craig Seeman]

Did you use ClipBrowser with CRC enabled? That's the safest way.

I'm not sure how you can end up with only a couple of clips (vs corrupted clips) short of interrupting the copying process. Please explain how you copied and what you mean by "a couple of clips." How are you checking this?

[Francois Dormoy]

Originally Posted by Craig Seeman

Did you use ClipBrowser with CRC enabled? That's the safest way.

I'm not sure how you can end up with only a couple of clips (vs corrupted clips) short of interrupting the copying process. Please explain how you copied and what you mean by "a couple of clips." How are you checking this?

I downloaded all the clips into an external hard drive using the XDCAM Clip Browser as I each time. Up to last month, I was regularly checking the imported files that I burned on a DVD before erasing the clips from the file. But this time, I said to myself that since in all occasions (I made so far 45 downloads), I never had a problem, this time I will not really need to check the file and I took the decision to erase them from the card using the ALL Clip Delete function of the camera. BUT !! What never happened to me in the past did happen yesterday!!! and have not yet found the right software to recuperate these lost files.
I cant figure out what really happened. The process may have been interrupted by an unknown event and only the first 3 clips were kept and of them only the first 2 could be read. The third one had a reading error. Frankly, I did not realised if the download process took the same time or was much quicker. My attention was not caught by any unusually short transfer time...

[Ola Christoffersson]

I am very sorry to hear about your lost clips. I too lost some clips in my early days before I figured out reliable routines. This is my workflow.

1. Have enough cards to last all day. SDHC cards with an adapter was the solution for me. This saves you from fiddeling with offloading clips on a shoot which dramatically increases the risk of mistakes.

2. Always transfer the clips to two harddrives before deleting the media off the card.

3. It is not often practical for med to check all shots in the clipbrowser but I at least compare the size and number of files in the BPAV folder after completing the copy. (This step would probably have saved your situation.)

[Keith Anderson]

Is there any benefit to using clip browser for file transfer as opposed to simply dragging and dropping the BPAV folder?

Many Thanks
Keith

[Francois Dormoy]

Yes, I have learned an important lesson for establishing a rigorous workflow and systematically check all downloaded files before doing any clip delete. Overconfidence can kill your work!!
I found a little bit confusing to keep the files in my cards while using other cards.
Fortunately this did not happen for clips I made on an helicopter ride, but simply family scene at home during XMas. So I can live with this situation and will teach me not to be overconfident...

[Alister Chapman]

If you enable CRC checking clip browser will check that the copy is valid, plus of course you can open the copied clips to check them.

I use shotput as it will copy to multiple destinations at the same time and then check and confirm that the copies are OK.

[Francois Dormoy]

Originally Posted by Craig Seeman

Did you use ClipBrowser with CRC enabled? That's the safest way.

What I normally do is to copy and paste the contents of the BPAV folder to an exsternal drive using Windows Explorer, then I look at the clip using the XDCAM CLipBrowser.
Is it possible to do that using the clipbrowser instead of using Explorer in a safer way?

[Craig Seeman]

NEVER use Windows Explorer to copy clips. That's an accident waiting to happen . . . and that's what happened. These are your MASTERS.

Use ClipBrowser. In ClipBrowser use Copy All. Use CRC as Alister notes to make sure files aren't corrupted.

ClipBrowser is for copying and moving clips. Beginning and end of it. Use nothing else . . . except ShotPut which is also designed for the same purpose.

I can't say this emphatically enough, nothing may happen hundreds of times but it only takes one accident to permanently lose a master, a job, a client, the cost of a reshoot.

You can drive without a seatbelt for years and then one day the accident happens.

Wear your seatbelt, use ClipBrowser (or ShotPut) and NEVER NEVER NEVER drag and drop files using Windows Explorer or Macintosh Finder. Sony warns against it for good reason.

Originally Posted by Francois Dormoy

What I normally do is to copy and paste the contents of the BPAV folder to an exsternal drive using Windows Explorer, then I look at the clip using the XDCAM CLipBrowser.
Is it possible to do that using the clipbrowser instead of using Explorer in a safer way?

[Ross Herewini]

Bonjour Francois,

Here's a post I made on the same problem...

"...I'm sure others know more than me, but I'll throw in a couple of thoughts...

One of my colleagues accidentally deleted a card and he tried a program called "THE UNDELETE" and met with relative success.

I just cleared a card and then recorded 4 clips onto it, copied the clips onto my laptops hard drive, and reformatted the card in the EX1. Checked using the laptop, all the clips were gone.
Downloaded "THE UNDELETE", and pointed it at the SxS card, and it was able to see all the files that were deleted, and some others that were also still on the card.

I checked the directory structure against my copies on the HD and they all lined up.

The next step in the recovery required me to purchase the software... well I'll leave that one to you. Can't guarantee anything, but it looked good to me.

I think these SxS cards are like MiniDisc, the data stays on the card until overwritten, with the TOC ( Table of contents ) the bit that changes. As long as you don't write anything further to the disk you should be ok.

I think."


I would have thought you would be in better shape after deleting the clips rather than by a reformat, as only the TOC has been rewritten, and the actual data has not been written over.

Once you write to the card then the chances of recovering anything useful diminish.

[Sean Seah]

Try File Scavenger. Works quite well for me.

[Paul Newman]

Undelete doesn't work, I've tested many of these programmes with SXS, they recover the files and trash the mpeg file structure, they are un-playable and un-repairable -so far that is in my tests - the files have damaged atom structure, or missing atoms.

I've had some success though, when testing files on SDHC cards - even more reason to dump SXS!!

Paul