minor heart attack, is data recovery possible?

C

craigbuckley

Active member
So I filmed a very important show on my video camera last night and everything went swell... I watched the footage on my camera and then also on my computer. I hooked up it through usb (I know- stupid) and transferred the majority of the files onto my computer, but there was one really long file that I didn't transfer because my battery was running low... I unplugged the memory card safely and charged my battery, but when I turned my camera back on, the memory card was empty.. I literally freaked out... I dont know what happened but this file was so important to me, it was the whole show pretty much, and now its gone...




Is there anyway to recover these files? When I plugged the SD card into my computer, I can find the .MTS files but I tried converting them to .mov and they are all screwed up... They just play the audio and not the video... Its for my final project in school and its so important,


help?

(I was using a HACKED gh2, with final cut pro, san disk extreme pro memory card 32gb 95mpbs)
 
craigbuckley said:
So I filmed a very important show on my video camera last night and everything went swell... I watched the footage on my camera and then also on my computer. I hooked up it through usb (I know- stupid) and transferred the majority of the files onto my computer, but there was one really long file that I didn't transfer because my battery was running low... I unplugged the memory card safely and charged my battery, but when I turned my camera back on, the memory card was empty.. I literally freaked out... I dont know what happened but this file was so important to me, it was the whole show pretty much, and now its gone...
Click to expand...

If you had one large file on there, then you were probably spanning, which means you should have copied the entire directory structure over, but it sounds like you copied the .MTS files only. Bad idea. Second, did you simply change the extension from .MTS to .MOV? If you did, that was your second bad idea. It's not a simple renaming (and on top of that, VideoLAN is the only OSX solution under Mountain Lion that will playback .MTS...if you're on Windows 7, I know Windows Media Player will play .MTS just fine).

There is recovery software from Panasonic that will help you out, though for the life of me I have no idea why that card would be wiped. But it does happen. Make sure you always format the cards in camera before you use them.
 
Thank you for your response! I actually didn't copy anything over. I imported some files through final cut which worked fine and usually does, but then I unplugged and charged my battery, and when I turned back on everythings was wiped.. and I didn't get a chance to important the actual file that I needed...The only thing I could find on my memory card was the .MTS files but when I open them with vlc it only plays the audio and not video... I tried recovery softwares but it only brings up .jpegs... Is there anything I can do? Is it because I didnt format my new memory card and I am using a hacked gh2?
 
craigbuckley said:
Is it because I didnt format my new memory card and I am using a hacked gh2?
Click to expand...

Did you try the Panasonic software I linked? All the hacked GH2 settings do is change the encoder, it should have nothing to do with losing the files if they were on there in the first place.
 
Did you write protect the SD card before putting in your Mac?

I may be off base here, but I do remember something about the Mac writing some type of info to the SD card - I could be wrong , but just trying to think how the data has gone considering you haven't done anything other than remove a card and insert it into your computer.

Windows user, so not very Mac savy I'm afraid!
 
Data Rescue 3 has helped me out. It's on the Mac App store (not sure what system you are using). Highly recommended.
 
Will this work for SD card, not just my mac hard drive? It never actually got saved to my mac.. I didn't write protect the sd card :(...

Data rescue 3 is 60 bucks and I am willing to pay that but what makes me hesitate is that I have tried several free data recovery applications and none of them have worked, so I dont know why another one would work, even if it costs money.
 
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Thanks for the advice I will try those.. I did try the sandisk recovery software and it didnt work. So my question is- is it possible that some recovery applications could recover the files and other applications couldn't? Should I keep trying different programs?

All the recovery programs come up with the same thing, A bunch of jpegs that were not on the computer but are different shots of the video that is missing... .mts files are the only thing on the memory card but its so weird because the clip was 45 minutes long but a bunch of .mts files show up, so I figure the file must have got destroyed and split up into different clips, which is weird..
 
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It is possible you have a hardware failure of the write controller of the card. I had this happen recently - was still able to recover the files via a company in Germany, but it was costly. The way to check is to inspect the capacity of the card ... is it still reporting this correctly? (If so, then this is not your problem.)
 
craigbuckley said:
.mts files are the only thing on the memory card but its so weird because the clip was 45 minutes long but a bunch of .mts files show up, so I figure the file must have got destroyed and split up into different clips, which is weird..
Click to expand...

That's called "spanning" and is completely normal behavior. But I thought you said it was only showing .JPG, but now it's showing .MTS files? I'm confused.
 
Gary Huff,

Could you explain a little more about spanning and how to fix it? I bought that 60 dollar program and no dice :( All these recovery software progrms show a bunch of .JPG but also find .MTS files on the card as well, about 15 files when I only had 7 or so on the card in the first place, so there's either duplicates or some files got split up... My only hope seems to be to do something with these .MTS... I tried converting them on several different converting programs but they all end up converting them to just having sound and 1 still image, no video... Any help here?
 
Ok I seemed to figure it out for future people that run into this problem. Go download the free app 5DtoRGB for mac or windows from the mac app store, and convert the .mts files to pro hi res.

In the future,

is tthere a better way of importing? Is straight through final cut the best way?
 
The absolute best method of importing is to first copy the entire contents of the card, keeping the directory structure intact, to a hard drive, either two drives or a RAID 1 enclosure. Then, you can either import with Final Cut Pro 7's Log and Transfer. If you don't have spanned clips (i.e. you didn't record for long periods of time), then you can actually transcode to ProRes using either Red Giant's Magic Bullet Grinder or 5DtoRGB.

If you simply transcode the individual .MTS files with spanned clips, you could potentially lose frames between connections. The card has additional information that allows Final Cut/Premiere/AVID to combine the spanned clips without any frame loss, but if you do it manually, that could be an issue.
 
Clip Wrap in the mac app store is a great program for converting bad mts files from hacked gh2's. Plus, hacked GH2's have issues with spanning - dont span!
 
soarprod said:
Plus, hacked GH2's have issues with spanning - dont span!
Click to expand...

Please don't spread FUD. The GH2 spans just fine when hacked, unless your SD card isn't fast enough. And if it isn't, you'll find out when shooting, which will simply mean that you'll be shooting like you would on a Canon. I have shot lots of spanned footage, mostly up to around 45-50 minute takes at a time, and have had zero issues with it...provided you imported it properly (Log and Transfer via FCP, or Media Browser in Premiere from a source with an intact directory structure).
 
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