Perhaps a program called File Scavenger can help you?

Peter -
I am assuming the files aren't backed up on another drive somewhere... I learnt that lesson the hard way (twice :oops

There is some good file recovery software, but it needs to be able to access the drive where your lost files are stored. I use one called Recover My Files - and I've used it when the PC crashes and my only option is to restore the hard drive.

You can get your clips back - if you reconnect your original drive. Unfortunately, with the software I mentioned, the files come back labelled RecoveredFile_7234893450 (which is about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike). Still - it's a painstaking thing but you get your stuff back.

Good luck with it!

Tony Tread gently and you'll hear the daisies grow...

Peter,

If I understand you correctly you have all your media files and your .pds files recovered on your E: drive.

If so, you have to understand the following :-

PD uses a hard reference in the .pds file, rather than a relative reference. So once the project is underway, if you move or rename a used asset - in effect this is your case- PD cannot find it again. Therefore you get a project with fades and effects, titles etc but no media, just black spaces.

Example:
Standard .pds file first few lines
PROJECT VERSION="0601" PROJECT_TYPE="0"><INFORMATION PROJECT="" AUTHOR="win user" DESCRIPTION="" CREATEDATE="2009/ 4/13 20:25:17" CLASS="" COMPANY="Company" KEYWORD="" ASPECTRATIO="TRUE" CLVSMODE="2" AUTHORINGDATA="" PACKPROJECT="FALSE"/><LIBRARY><VIDEOSLOT><VIDEOOBJECT ID="0" SRC="D:\Documents and Settings\win user\My Documents\My Videos\Shallowdale relaxation\Shallowdale Beck_0096.MP4" NAME="Shallowdale Beck_0096.MP4" MUTE="FALSE"

Note the variables
PACKPROJECT="FALSE"
SRC="D:\Documents and Settings\win user\My Documents\My Videos\Shallowdale relaxation\Shallowdale Beck_0096.MP4"

(ASPECTRATIO="TRUE" - this sets the 16:9 flag by the way. Thank you Dafydd )

If you have 'packed' a project all the assets are allocated the same 'address' as the .pds file.

Example
This is the same project 'packed'

<PROJECT VERSION="0601" PROJECT_TYPE="0"><INFORMATION PROJECT="" AUTHOR="win user" DESCRIPTION="" CREATEDATE="2009/ 4/13 20:34:56" CLASS="" COMPANY="Company" KEYWORD="" ASPECTRATIO="TRUE" CLVSMODE="2" AUTHORINGDATA="" PACKPROJECT="TRUE"/><LIBRARY><VIDEOSLOT><VIDEOOBJECT ID="0" SRC="Shallowdale Beck_0096.MP4" NAME="Shallowdale Beck_0096.MP4" MUTE="FALSE"

Same variables
PACKPROJECT="TRUE"
SRC="Shallowdale Beck_0096.MP4"

So far so good.

If you have packed projects you have no major problems.

If you have saved projects, you now have .pds files that reference assets in the old way but the assets are somewhere else.

You have 3 choices :
Re-edit the projects you need from scratch - in effect start again
Edit the .pds file to look at the 'new' file locations
Rebuild the original file locations so the .pds file can locate the assets.

None of these are ideal. Which one you choose depends on several things.

If you had a 'common' approach to PD projects, with all project assets in a single place then rebuild the location structure.

If you have assets scattered over many locations, life's a bitch and then you die.

Or you can look at each .pds file, note each asset location and replace the asset in that location.
eg
D:\Documents and Settings\win user\My Documents\My Videos\Shallowdale relaxation\Shallowdale Beck_0096.MP4

or you can edit each .pds file to give the new (or chosen location) for each asset
eg substitute D:\Documents and settings\ with say E:\my recovered files\

E:\my recovered files\win user\My Documents\My Videos\Shallowdale relaxation\Shallowdale Beck_0096.MP4

Either of these last methods are really, really tedious.

Your situation is difficult and is the reason for using the pack function and/or having a project file structure with all assets 'under one roof' so to speak - you have a better chance of rebuilding things.

Best of luck
Adrian




Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

OOPS - sorry - I failed to read the problem correctly. Dumb!

Good info Adrian. Tread gently and you'll hear the daisies grow...

What Adrian is trying to say, in his usual long-winded fashion, is, if you jam a pencil in your ear, as forcefully as you can, you will not be so troubled by other things. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
Canon Vixia HV30/HF-M40/HF-M41/HF-G20/Olympus E-PL5.
Tape capture using 6 VCR, TBC-1000, Elite BVP4+, Sony D8 camcorder with TBC.
https://www.facebook.com/BarryAFTT

Once again, as is the norm, I totally agree with Adrian’s “comprehensive” (that was directed at you Barry, hahaha), assessment and fix.

Peter,
It appears you saved (in an alternate location), your pds files, but the individual clips and/or images were located in other folders. And now when PD goes to the only addresses it knows where it can reunite with those images/clip, there’s nothing there. Ergo blackness.
Adrian eloquently explained how it is possible to reunite the pds files with your images/clips (assuming that a backup copy of them were also saved elsewhere), but it is a daunting task.
So the lesson here is...
Upon starting a project, say... “Billy’s Birthday Bash”. The first thing I do is to create a “BBB Master” folder. And as I locate the images and clips I want to use, the first thing I do is to place a copy of that file in the BBB Master folder. Then I open PD7 and load the BBB M folder to PD7’s library. And before I make my first edit, I “save as” my first (and subsequent) pds files (Billy-1, Billy-2, Billy-3, etc) to the BBB Master folder.
I also save a copy of the BBB M folder to my aux USB storage drive and update this copy frequently.
As I’m editing, and I find new elements that I want to add to the Billy’s Birthday Bash project, before I import anything to PD7, I first place a copy of it in the BBB Master folder, and then load it to PD7 from the BBB M folder. (again frequently updating the BBB M copy in the aux drive) That way, as Adrian says, you have everything under one roof, and PD7 will always be able to find it. And in an emergency you also have the same thing in the aux drive.

Now you may ask...”Isn’t doing all that a pain in the neck?” Absolutely is!
But compared to the pain that eats away at the very bottom of one’s soul, when you completely lose an important project that you’ve been working on for days or weeks, well... I’ll take the pain in the neck any day.
Then once the project is completed, I can pack the essential elements for archiving, and send everything that is uneccessary or was unused, to the recycle bin.
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