2 days audio recording lost, session quits closing

[crizdee]

Hi,

I have a session that quits everytime i close it! it has been doing this since i started recording vocals for 2 days last week, it didin't seem to effect the session at the time and i was able to re-open when i needed to and carry on recording. But today i reload the session and ALL the recorded vocals from the 2 day session have gone!

The disk allocation is indicating the correct folder was used! and i saved the song often, i even backed-up the session at the end of the day? but it seems that the files had gone missing before i backed-up as the back-up is also missing all the vocal files.

I think that the session quitting everytime i close it must be related to the cause of the files going missing! i did try to trouble shooting this session at the time and i removed all the plugins to see if that was causing the quits, but it still quit without the plugins! as i was with a client and a session singer i had to continue working and couldn't continue rouble shooting a problem that seemed to be superficial.

It tries to relink? but there's nothing to relink to. so i wonder if i have any chance of recovering these files, even though i have done 3-4 days work since.

Chris

[Jeff Ulmer]

Have you checked to see whether there are audio files in the folder from those days? It sounds like the session is hosed, so I wouldn't try anything else with it. Try creating a new session and importing the audio/tracks from the old session and see if that works. If you were listening to the audio files when you recorded them they should be around somewhere. Trying doing a Finder search for files with creation dates on the days the missing audio is from.

[crizdee]

Have you checked to see whether there are audio files in the folder from those days? It sounds like the session is hosed, so I wouldn't try anything else with it. Try creating a new session and importing the audio/tracks from the old session and see if that works. If you were listening to the audio files when you recorded them they should be around somewhere. Trying doing a Finder search for files with creation dates on the days the missing audio is from.

Thanks Jeff, no there's nothing in the audio folder from those days! this is the bizarre thing? i did 2 days recording vocals on this session and other session on the same days, i would flip between sessions, recording lead, then BV's etc and the session would open up ok with no problems! only it would never close without quitting pro tools.

At the end of the second day i opened up the session ok and played it to everyone involved! re-open today and all the audio from those days are gone from the hard drive, the regions are all there, but of course all in italics light grey etc. everything recorded on that day in this session had the same recorded name of "Ami" approx 200 takes, no sign of them any where!!

Chris

[blackmacdaddy]

Sorry to hear about your troubles.

I imagine you've already searched for just the date(s) you were recording then sorted by KIND.
Looking for 5 or 7.5 mb per minute sized files.

If it's an external firewire drive on 10.3.x, it could be http://www.index-site.com/firewirebug2.html
Data Rescue 2 is highly regarded for disappearing & unmountable drives.

Can't think of anything else off the top, but boy, I've been there.

Best of luck :-| Walt

[Jeff Ulmer]

Ouch. I would stop using that drive, back it up, and try some of the utilities for recovery. This sounds like the drive or bus connection is having problems. The files should be saved as they are recorded, so even if they get lost from the session, there would still be files on disc. I could see losing the last take due to a ProTools malfunction, but it doesn't make sense that all the audio is gone, UNLESS ProTools somehow erased it, in which case it should still be there, but just removed from the disc's directory (I hope for your sake).

The only other thing I would try is to search for invisible files with a creation date matching your sessions. I don't know why a file should disappear, but it is a possibility. Searching by date seems the likely way to find what went missing.

Good luck!

[Lee Blaske]

I second that. That drive is most likely toast. Sometimes, when drives are failing, you might be able to recover some data during a certain part of the warm up cycle. I assume you turn the computer off when you're finished for the day. When you reboot the computer the next day, check at 5 to 10 minute intervals for an hour or two to see if the files appear. If they do, copy them to another drive as fast as you can.

BTW, if you attempt to use any data recovery applications, make sure you use the most up-to-date versions, so you'll be compatible with your OS. Using older versions can sometimes cause more damage.

Lee Blaske

[crizdee]

Hi,

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. i'm gonna have to try and recover these files!!

Is disk warrior the best or is there a better program?
can disk warrior recover files even if the drive's been recorded over!?

Chris

[studiojimi]

i'm not sure he has time right now chris

but rail was very helpful to me when my drive when down

[AL.]

I've never posted here before but after reading that your drive just quit on you I had to reply because something similar happened to me last week. Luckily I recovered 100% of my files. I used this program called DataRescue 2. Try the demo version to see if it can see your drive and locate your files.

Good luck!

AL.

[crizdee]

Hi,

I forgot to mention! the drive seems to be perfectly OK..

2 other session recorded on that day are fine and 20 other session on this drive are fine! only this session that kept quitting when closing was effected for the 2 day period i was recording vocals.

I have noticed that my recorded files are sometimes recorded with the quicktime logo then some with the aiff logo and back and forth! with no help from me? just seems to randomly choose which one

Thanks Al, i'll give Data Rescue 2 a test drive.

Chris