Hi Nathalie,

Do you mean you have renamed the yourfile.pds.bak to yourfile.pds and it still won't open?

Cheers
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.

HI,
Is the BAK file named XXXXX.pds.bak - the "XXXXXX" just represents a file name?

1. make a copy of the BAK file
2. Rename the BAK file to: XXXXXX001.pds
3. Double click the renamed file
4. PD should have opened and some of your project displayed - to the point when the auto saved kicked in.

What's the result?

Dafydd

Oye Adrian (C-Cam developer), I answered this with more detail....

Grumble, mumble...blast and drat... he got in before me....





Dafydd

You know me - short and sweet 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.

What would I do without you guys!
I have now my project back THANK YOU SO MUCH.
And No I was trying to open the BAK file just as it was which obvioulsy wasn't getting me anywhere! Now I know... change it to .PDS

I do have another question (probably stupid) but different subject, if I put my project + files on a USB key and try to open it on another laptop which has PD I can never reopen it! Would you know why?

Once again thanks a lot for your help.
Nathalie

Think of your pds file as like an index or table of contents. PD looks at the pds file and examines the timeline. If it finds something, it refers back to the location from which you first accessed that particular video clip or image (when you first imported into the media library). When you save the pds file onto a USB drive and try to open it on another another computer, PD can not access the original location and hence you will only get black bars where information is supposed to be.

Here's what you have to do if you want to save your project to another location or drive. Directors Chair --> File --> Export --> Pack Project --> Drive and directory of interest. PD will now copy all the associated files to this newly defined location and the resulting new pds file which is created in that location will refer to those files, and not the original files. This is what you should always do when you complete a project and decide to archive it. Otherwise, you run the serious risk of never being able to fix something later. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Well said, James!

In short, Nathalie, what James is saying is - you need to put all your media files on your USB gizmo (that's the Pack thing James was talking about).

When you do THAT, it'll work.

Cheers -

Tony
Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!

Hi,
Having just lost my project for the second time, run time error (PD vista issue I guess) I was pleased to find this BAK file thead.
I've found the BAK file (I think) in my docs, I followed instructions above, but I have clearly missed something.
now I'm not the sharpest tool in the box as far as computers go, so could you talk me through key by key as it were. I renamed it finishing .pds but it is still a BAK file in properties.
what am I doing wrong?
I think I cocked up on the copying bit.
Terry

Hi James & Tony,

Sorry haven't had a chance to say thank you to you both for your help with my USB problem, now I can clear some stufff of my hard drive and have all my PD project somewhere safe.

Nathalie

I'm with Terry, gosh was hoping for this to work.

I did try copying my BAK file and I did rename it with a .pds and still I get nothing. If I double-click nothing happens, Power Director boots up and that's it. If I try to bring that renamed file in, I get the same message that the file is broken.

Interestingly, I look at the properties and it appears the content is there. That is, it says the file is 858 kb.

Man, what a drag...this is the first time this has happened to me in the year I've had Power Director 7.

g

God I hate power director. This pain in the ass program has been a thorn since the beginning.

What fries me the most is the support from spending a good sum of money only comes from youtube or an online forum.

Good bye Cyberlink.