hard drive file management

Tonypfei wrote on 6/29/2002, 2:07 AM
. I deleted a bunch of clips in windows explorer but the program still wants to look for them and now I can't remove them from the media pool for that project. It comes up as an error. I now know I should have deleted them from the media pool window. Now my hardrive is showing 28 gig of space used and I can only find about 6 gig worth of files(this is in a dedcated partition). Is this related to my inept attempt at deleting files? I may try and format that partition and see if I get the space back. Is htere a way to delete a project along with clips and everything after I have it rendered?

I really like this program its been very easy to learn to create video even though I had zero experience.

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 6/29/2002, 8:43 AM
If you mean you "deleted" files by dragging them to the Recycle Bin unless you empty the recycle bin they are just moved to another folder and can be easily restored. Open Recycle Bin by double clicking and restore what you want or remove what you want which will free up space on your hard drive. When you "empty" the Windows Recycle Bin you really aren't getting rid of any files, you are just freeing up clusters allowing Windows to overwrite them with something else. You may also want to try a "disk cleanup" to free up space. From Windows Explorer right click on a drive letter, properties, disk cleanup. You can delete project files like any other file in Windows. I try to keep all files for a project in one folder, then once done just get rid of the folder.

Remember moving files from their present location to the Recycle Bin is like pouring a cup of coffee into another cup. It just when somewhere else. To reclaim hard drive space you need to empty the Recycle Bin which will free up the space any "deleted" files took up.

No files are ever truly deleted in the sense they are somehow destroyed. That's impossible. Once data is written to a hard drive it stays there until the clusters the file occupied get overwritten with something else. If you don't want to have sensitive file fragements remaining on your hard drive you need to "wipe" the files/drive with a wipe utility that writes a pattern of zeros and ones or just randam data.
Tonypfei wrote on 6/29/2002, 11:18 PM
Well Duh!! Now I feel stupid. I completly forgot about the recycle bin. I rarely drag files to the recycle bin I usually use right click delete so I guess I never thought about it. I am not used to dealing with files this large so it was not an issue before.

In any case is there an easy way to clean up all those clips. I.E. an option that lets me delete the project and all the clips instead of one clip at a time.

Thanks for your reply.

Bernard
Chienworks wrote on 6/29/2002, 11:25 PM
If you're organized enough to store all the project's files in one folder and don't have anything else in that folder, then you can delete the entire folder in one step. Failing that, you can click on the first file, then Ctrl-click the rest to select them all, then delete them all together.

Also, if you hold the shift key down when you delete, the files are immediately deleted without going to the recycle bin.
BillyBoy wrote on 6/30/2002, 11:00 AM
One more interesting "feature" of Windows is if you attempt to "delete" a really large file and it exceeds the capacity of the Recycle Bin to store it, it also gets "deleted" automatically, after telling you it can't be stored in the Recycle Bin. So since working with large files is par for the course for video editing, do note if you see that warning be sure you really want to get rid of the file, otherwise you aren't going to get it back unless you know more about 'undeleting' files than the average user does. <wink>
Grazie wrote on 6/30/2002, 2:08 PM
oooh love that <wink> - must remember that the next time you answer my obdurate, stubborn questions on PTTing ;)

Best regards

Grazie :)