Recovering lost files of media cards, Please Help

P

Paddyscott.com

Member
I did a job filming on my Sony EX3 and then imported the files through Sony XD Cam transfer, i did a random check to see all files were imported however when i came to check there was one file that had not imported, the largest of all of them so a fair bit of footage that i need.

I have since done another job and so cleared the cards.

Is there any way of doing some kind of recovery to get this file back, it is pretty vital and i am desperate...

Please Please help

Paddy
 
Did you double check ALL the imported files? One time I had a similar situation when I shot a wedding, the entire 20 minute ceremony was one file. I didn't see that file and I just about had a heart attack. I was dying with each passing minute. I was trying to figure out how I was going to tell the bride and groom that their ceremony didn't record. I was just about to load my gun when I saw the clip was named differently and put at the very end of the card.

If you're checking in sequence order sometimes a large file is not there, it's put at the very end for some reason. I hope that's your case too.
 
Sorry to hear that, I feel for you. I just know that I'm really careful now with the really long clips since that scare I had, I have no idea why they are sometimes treated differently. I hope someone can give you advice on rescuing the clip... I know it can be done for sure if you hadn't recorded over it, but maybe it still can. Did you delete the clips or reformat the card? Have you deleted/reformatted again since then?

As a precaution, my workflow is to save the entire folder as is (BPAV), then I import separately. That way I can always go back to the original folder if needed. It's a lot more storage intensive but just adds another layer of protection.
 
Hi Buck,

Yea in future will definitely take that on board and save the BPAV file first, if only had thought of that before...

I only deleted the clips which could help but i did record on them again so imagine that would be the nail in the coffin...

Thanks again
 
Deleting or reformating gets rid of the table, not the files.

If you only recorded a little afterwards on the card you still might find them with file recovery software. The card is treated like any other drive. You might get bits and pieces, or the entire file.

If you recorded over the whole card its completely gone.
 
Like Duke said, if you recorded over the files, they might be gone. However, if you have not, there may still be a chance. We accidentally Erased All Clips, but recoverd them since we Did Not lay down a new recording. We found a guy in Barcelona, Spain who has developed some software that was able to recover the files even though they were recorded onto an SDHC card, rather than an SxS. Sony couldn't even do it. We've posted that experience here before and on DVinfo... but I get you more information if you'd like to email me : Frank@TheStudioCenter.com Don't slash your wrists just yet!!
 
Thanks Duke, thats what seems to be happening to me, am getting clips back put they are a combination of frames from about 3 different shoots!
 
We had accidentally Deleted All Clips on the wrong card, but did not record new material over it. Most of the Sony engineers couldn't figure out any way to get the data that was probably latent on the SDHC card. We found this successful method.
Here's a link to a thread on Creative Cow : http://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/142/870390 where my brother Fred Casanova ( who is our Senior Editor and Chief Techno Whiz ) posted our question about Un-Deleting EX1 files... and we got our first lead to Aero Quartet in Barcelona, Spain.
Here is Aero Quartet's website: http://www.aeroquartet.com/movierepair/repair.html As I recall, first download their free analysis program called "Treasured" to see if you can view any files. If so, then you can decide to proceed. Here is their XDCAM repair price matrix: http://www.aeroquartet.com/movierepair/pricing.html It only cost us about $175 to retrieve the camera files that would have cost us over $5,000 to re-shoot for our client. The quality of the video was near pristine. This was cheap by that measure!!
The genius behind all this is a Frenchman named Benoît Joossen, who is now living in Barcelona. He was really helpful with emails back and forth...and obviously it worked for us. Hope he can do the same magic for you. Best of luck...
 
lost data

lost data

I had a problem with a JVC GY-HM100 and a class 10 Panasonic 32GB card shooting 35mb/sec. I forget which program I tried to use but one of them lets you demo it 5 times before buying it. This one was talked about on this forum before:

http://www.flashmemorytoolkit.com/

The recovery seemed to pull up files that were on the card BEFORE I dropped it in the camera and formatted. I was shooting MOV and it pulled up a lot of M4V, which is the other format the camera shoots in. Formatting the card in the camera seemed to have plowed the intro to each file, but not the video itself. The M4V files were not needed so I didn't try to import these "orphaned" files into FCP.

I am leaning towards connecting SDHC cards to my MAC PRO and running the 35 pass erase in the disk utility to just steam roll everything. We're all tired of the "next time you should" stuff, but here's my next time stuff, shoot with 8GB cards and swap cards often.

For redundant recording DATAVIDEO just released a $500 CF recorder that runs on 4AA batteries. Cameras don't really have FW on them anymore though.

http://www.datavideo.info/en/Recorders/DN-60
 
Last edited:
I know it doesn't help now but I am VERY thankful that I am going to a KiPro. It gives me redundancy since I record to the SxS and the KiPro at the same time.. It's GREAT insurance!
 
Hi !

You can use a third party memory card data recovery software to recover your lost data. There are lots of memory card recovery software in the market these days but choosing the best is very difficult because all software does not recovers our all lost data.I would recommend you for Kernel for memory card recovery software that i have used last week and woks better for me.You can also fined it from www.memorycardrecovery.org

Thanks
 
John... Does this really work with Sony's XDCAM's BPAV files? At first glance, this doesn't look like it would work since it's for Windows and most of us use Macs (with FCP).
 
I'm running a nanoflash which gives a back up recording at the same time. My thoughts have been running between buying several more CF cards for it, or downloading them on site with some thing like the nexto for $379.

http://www.amazon.com/Nexto-Extreme-ND2700-5400RPM-External/dp/B0030MFU0K

As I undertand it running on the AA batteries for any devices like this you can only copy a couple of cards. The do work well plugged into car batteries through the cigarette lighter or a wall outlet.
 
Duke... Why wouldn't you just off load the files to a laptop on site? The Nexto seems about the same price as a basic laptop... but doesn't have all the things you get with a laptop!! Also, 5400 rpm is rather slow... Wonder how long it would take to off load a 16gb CF card?
 
They say that the speed of the drive is not the bottleneck. The Epson P-7000 ($800) was reviewed by Photograhy Blog and was stated as taking over 18 minutes to transfer 9.3GB of files using a SanDisk Extreme III memory card. The Nexto eXtreme, 9.3GB worth of data takes just over 6 minutes. That's 3x faster.

For similar devices the Nexto is 5.1x faster than the Digital Foci DataSafe II and 15x faster than the Wolverine Flash Pack 7000. If anyone has other comparisons please chime in.

A quick look at the Datavideo DN-60 mentioned earlier shows it only supports DV: .avi, .mov
HDV: .m2t native and through supplied quick software utility also QuickTime HDV. That seems to leave EX1 files out. Also, it uses firewire. My understanding is that Firewire only supports 1440 HDV, not full raster 1920 file formats like the EX1. Someone should check that.

The Nexto does an xcopy and by passes the CPU and USB ports. An xcopy copies all the files period. Doesn't matter what type, format, etc. Most netbook only have a USB port, not a built in CF card reader, SATA port, SDHC port, etc. like the Nexto And the Nexto is a bit smaller, for a big pocket, although a netbook has a full screen.

Any one with a screwdriver should be able to buy the smaller driver version (its cheaper) and add a bigger or faster hard drive, but the faster drives use more power.

It just depends on which features you are most interested in.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top