This is not a question but a point of reference that may save someone else.
I was busily working on a 15 minute video for a major Fortune 500 client. As usual, I was working off of dedicated drives on a Firewire interface. I use ADS Pyro enclosures, buy a new drive for each client, and keep ALL data there, media files, VEG files, music, voice over, Photoshop, scripts, etc. The works. That way, if in two weeks or even two years, someone needs revisions, I have everything in one place, exactly as I left it.
Well... after 3 weeks of editing and over 500 recorded edits, from 16 hours of digitized footage, I accidently kicked a plug on the Firewire drive... heard a small zzzzip... and Everything Was Gone!
Plus... I had just submitted the first rough cut to the client, and they Loved It.
Now, it was gone. Horror.
After futzing with the drive for a half hour or so, I powered down the system and went home for the night... to decide whether to redo 3 weeks of intesive editing... trying to match the already approved project ("Victor... Jim is ecstatic"), or simply to kill myself.
The next morning I powered up the computer. The drive in question would only mount as a "Local Drive - unsupported data - Do you wish to format this drive?" No directory, no files, no nothing. Why hadn't I backed up the VEG (EDL) onto another drive?? Why, why, why????
So I booted Vegas. As Vegas loaded, it suddenly asked, "You did not save your last session correctly. Would you like to save it now?" With tears in my eyes (well, close anyway), and trembling hands, I said...Resave It. And it did. There was my whole project, every last edit in place. Three weeks of tedious re-editing instantly became two days of reconstruction. I was so happy. Why "reconstruction"?
Well, I generate a lot of "pre-mix" special effects in my work. Those AVI files were gone... or were they?
I had contacted several data retrieval services and received quotes from $1,500 to $8,000, with no guarantee of success. It was too much for this project, and anyway, I now had my EDL list back.
Just for the heck of it, I gave Maxtor (the drive manufacturer) a call, and asked what if anything could be done. The tech there turned me onto an on-line service, called "Total Recall" - www.totalrecall.com.
Somehow, Total Recall, over the internet, was able to scan my 120 gig drive and recover every last file. Cost? $400. Not nothing... but it beat the heck out of 3 weeks of hard work.
So - thanks Sonic Foundry for automatically backing up my files, when I was too stupid to do so (Actually I backup everything all the time... but... duh... onto the same hard drive - never again), and a special notice to all of you. If you have a total crash, you still may be able to recover... try Total Recall.
v.
I was busily working on a 15 minute video for a major Fortune 500 client. As usual, I was working off of dedicated drives on a Firewire interface. I use ADS Pyro enclosures, buy a new drive for each client, and keep ALL data there, media files, VEG files, music, voice over, Photoshop, scripts, etc. The works. That way, if in two weeks or even two years, someone needs revisions, I have everything in one place, exactly as I left it.
Well... after 3 weeks of editing and over 500 recorded edits, from 16 hours of digitized footage, I accidently kicked a plug on the Firewire drive... heard a small zzzzip... and Everything Was Gone!
Plus... I had just submitted the first rough cut to the client, and they Loved It.
Now, it was gone. Horror.
After futzing with the drive for a half hour or so, I powered down the system and went home for the night... to decide whether to redo 3 weeks of intesive editing... trying to match the already approved project ("Victor... Jim is ecstatic"), or simply to kill myself.
The next morning I powered up the computer. The drive in question would only mount as a "Local Drive - unsupported data - Do you wish to format this drive?" No directory, no files, no nothing. Why hadn't I backed up the VEG (EDL) onto another drive?? Why, why, why????
So I booted Vegas. As Vegas loaded, it suddenly asked, "You did not save your last session correctly. Would you like to save it now?" With tears in my eyes (well, close anyway), and trembling hands, I said...Resave It. And it did. There was my whole project, every last edit in place. Three weeks of tedious re-editing instantly became two days of reconstruction. I was so happy. Why "reconstruction"?
Well, I generate a lot of "pre-mix" special effects in my work. Those AVI files were gone... or were they?
I had contacted several data retrieval services and received quotes from $1,500 to $8,000, with no guarantee of success. It was too much for this project, and anyway, I now had my EDL list back.
Just for the heck of it, I gave Maxtor (the drive manufacturer) a call, and asked what if anything could be done. The tech there turned me onto an on-line service, called "Total Recall" - www.totalrecall.com.
Somehow, Total Recall, over the internet, was able to scan my 120 gig drive and recover every last file. Cost? $400. Not nothing... but it beat the heck out of 3 weeks of hard work.
So - thanks Sonic Foundry for automatically backing up my files, when I was too stupid to do so (Actually I backup everything all the time... but... duh... onto the same hard drive - never again), and a special notice to all of you. If you have a total crash, you still may be able to recover... try Total Recall.
v.