How to recover a lost .avi file

[Raniburger]

Guys,

I've just done something stupid. I wanted to edit a clip that I had finished some time ago, so I imported it into Premiere Pro (1.5), and then exported the new .avi over the top of the old one (which was in my open sequence). When I went to play it back, the whole clip was now replaced with the standard Adobe 'Media Offline' image. Of course, this meant that I could no longer use the source file in the open sequence.

As this was not on a network drive, I don't have a backup copy. Is there any software you guys may have used in the past that could help me recover the original somehow? Or do I just have to chalk this one up to experience & write the whole sequence off (I don't even have the original unedited footage anymore...)

Thanks...

[drewzor]

C:\Documents and Settings\USER\My Documents\Adobe\Premiere Pro\7.0\Adobe Premiere Pro Preview Files

Sometimes parts or all of the clips are there, sometimes not.

[JerryB]

Guys,

I've just done something stupid. I wanted to edit a clip that I had finished some time ago, so I imported it into Premiere Pro (1.5), and then exported the new .avi over the top of the old one (which was in my open sequence). When I went to play it back, the whole clip was now replaced with the standard Adobe 'Media Offline' image. Of course, this meant that I could no longer use the source file in the open sequence.

As this was not on a network drive, I don't have a backup copy. Is there any software you guys may have used in the past that could help me recover the original somehow? Or do I just have to chalk this one up to experience & write the whole sequence off (I don't even have the original unedited footage anymore...)

Thanks...

Hi,
Youmight have to chalk it up as gone!!!..... there might be a way...and have done this a coupleof times.... with older fat32 systems.... it hasn't been neccessary t try it on a ntfs system

background.. when you overwrite a file... what takes place is the orginal name a and location is deleted automatically from the disk table of contents (weather that a fat table or ntfs) and the new file assumes the same name...but different location!! so in most case the old file is still there..... using a unerase/undelete program may recover that file..!!

there freeware version of these programs avail.... go to download.com or tucows.com and get one that at least give indication it can be used on a ntfs formatted drives...

final note: as a rule you would want to have something like this already installed... also time is of the essence the longer one waits the less likelhood of a 100% recovery

[thecoalman]

You may be able to recover it with this if none of it has been overwritten, the more you use th computer the more likely that it has.

If it's really important my suggestion would be to stop using the computer and look into something like this which will run from a bootable CD: http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue_pc.php

Knoppix which is version of Linux which boots from CD is great for recovering data that has not been deleted, you may want to search around for a tool you can run from there for recovery... The key here being your not reading or writing to the drive.

This will recover files but has to be installed on a active windows drive: http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm If you want to press your luck it's certainly worth a shot because it's free.

[Bjs]

Drive rescue ... google for it , it's free and work's .

Because this file was edited ... the new file is not placed into the same position ... that would be a system conflict .

Run this tool ... follow the instruction's , locate file by name ... if file is green , recover is possible ... if not , you can still try , but file may be corrupted .

[Raniburger]

Thanks Guys, I'll give it a go & let you know how I get on. Having spent all night last night thinking about this, don't you think that Premiere should have a pop up warning if you try to export over a file that is used in the source timeline? Might be too late for me, but I wouldn't think I was the first person to accidently do something like this...

[Raniburger]

OK Guys, I've tried both Drive Rescue, and PC Inspector - and they are both VERY similar apps. I have tried searching for the file by name, and have found the current version on my hard drive (which is the one that overwrote the actual version I am looking for). However, trying to save this file only reproduces the version currently available through Windows. It doesn't bring up numerous/older versions of the same file. It seems quite good at finding files that have been deleted, but as this is not technically the issue with the file I am trying to recover, I'm not sure if it can do what I want.

I've been using the Find 'Lost' files option, as mine wasn't technically deleted... Is this the correct option?

[kschang]

If it's overwritten, then it's overwritten and gone. Nothing's gonna retrieve what you had sort of a backup copy.