Computer Reformat - What Do I Need to Retain Project-wise?

F

Fidelio

Active member
Hi all,

A quick question:

My computer has been running very slow and buggy lately and so I've been thinking about reformatting it and fresh booting it on a factory-default copy of Windows.

My only concern is, of course, a project that I am working on at the moment, which I fear might incur some kind of loss if I did not back-up the proper materials.

To my knowledge, if I have the source files (i.e. the video clips) and the project file, I would be all right, correct?

The only other things that I could think of which could save me time later are the auto-save project versions and the rendered files, although I am assuming that with the exception of the auto-saves, I can easily put the renders through again and it would not be any different.

I just wanted to double check about this here, before I potentially make the mistake of forgetting to do a proper back-up!

Thanks,

F.
 
You should always keep a project organized so that transfers like this are easy. Ideally, you might have everything (all media, all .pproj files, all auto-save backups, all renders, everything) in a single folder (with many internal folders) so that a transfer to an external drive is as simple as moving that single folder, keeping everything inside -- including the folder structure -- intact. If you have multiple drives (maybe for different media types), you can do the same on each drive, creating a single folder, and then you can just transfer that folder.

What you don't want to do is have the whole project scattered all over many disparate folders on several drives, which will make this kind of task at best a headache and at worst an impossible nightmare. It takes a little discipline and extra time to organize things, but when cases like this come up, it's well worth it. It's also well worth it for archiving purposes.

So, if you can organize your project into a single folder, that would be the easiest. But if you're using multiple drives (which you might want to for performance), don't let it be more than a few, and keep each drive organized.

Example:

Master Folder (Project Name) -- I might keep the .pproj files at this level.
Subfolders:
- Video
- Audio
- Images
- Music
- Any sub-projects or Photoshop files, etc.
- Whatever else

Then, it's just a simple matter of transferring the Master Folder to another drive.

Of course, you have to do this kind of organizing before you start your project, or it'll be a PITA process of reconnecting with all your media if you do it later.

So, this is one way to go; there are other ways as well. (Some might suggest keeping everything on external drives so that you don't have to transfer; that has advantages and disadvantages.) However you do it, disciplined media organization is key. Premiere has default system folders where it will save things, but you can define them to save where you want. It's in your interest to do so.
 
I agree with David Jimerson.

If your going to reinstall use Windows Files & transfer wizard to an external. This usually only copies the "User" folders files. I would additionally do a copy of the whole drive to the external if you have room. Then when after the fresh install us the transfer wizard to copy all your files back.

Hard drives are cheap, realistically i would just put in a new drive and do a fresh install. That way if you have any issues, you can drop the old hard drive back in and boot from it if you need to.

Then when your all satisfied with the new install, setup a regular schedualed backup to an external, other PC drive or online service. I've lost too many hard drives.
 
The three things you will need to recreate any project are:

1. Assets - all video, audio and image files used in the project.
2. Project files, not just Premiere Pro's but also those from After Effects or any other program that may be used in the creation of your timeline or assets.
3. Third party effects. Your project will not rebuild correctly if you used an effect in the original but for some reason do not have that effect available on rebuild.
 
I agree. I would replace the drive with another and keep the old one as an emergency backup in case of some unexpected problem. Drives are cheap. If everything goes perfectly on the new drive then you can erase the old one. Also as mentioned, don't forget about software deactivations/re-activations which can be a pain if you have lots of software and plugins.
 
Thanks for the advice David and others. I did not use any third-party effects nor any other that's not stock, and I'm not terribly keen on keeping the auto-saves or render files, so I think I'm just going to save the original media assets and the project file that I have, and get rid of everything else. I guess later on it might be more trouble to render them again, but in the meantime I won't really need to revisit the project any time soon, it does save me storage space, and there's nothing lost (in the sense that re-rendering would simply restore whatever it was that I had deleted.)

Just wanted to make sure that, running on such a bare bones back-up of just assets and project file, I could still reproduce the project faithfully in the future. Thanks again, everyone!
 
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