Disaster strikes due to a mistake

I was really tired working at my computer when I was helping a friend who asked me to help fix their jump drive. It needed to be formatted.

Well it just wasn’t working at first. After a few tries I finally formatted it and since I was use to just clicking the drive and clicking go in a moment I accidently formatted my external hard drive instead.

Panic struck as realized what I had done and what I potentially had lost. The only good news was I had just put this new 2TB hard drive into service a few weeks ago.

The worst case scenario was I lost images that I had not posted to my cloud servers, which was all the camera RAW files. I just post JPEGs once I finish running them through Lightroom and keep the RAW files in a couple places.

Everything was gone and I hadn’t had a chance to create a backup on some of the files.

Frantically I tried to use my PhotoRescue software, but due to the newer Mac 10.10.1 operating system it wouldn’t work.

I then found Data Rescue 4. I had to run a deep scan and it took a good 24+ hours to scan the 2 TB hard drive. 95%+ of the hard drive was recovered. The only thing is the folder and organization wasn’t as I hoped, but all the RAW files and JPEGs were there.

Couple of points that you need to know to recover the most. First, if you make a similar mistake I made stop and immediately do not use the hard drive until you have recovered your files. Formating is bad, but even worse is shooting more images and writing those to the hard drive. 

On the Mac open system preferences and then click on Energy Saver.

Change the Computer Sleep to never when running the program. Put it back when you are done. I made the mistake of not doing this so when I set it to run over night after about 15 minutes the computer stopped running and had gone to sleep.

While I would love to say the moral of the story is to never do this, there are times you too may be so tired and not thinking straight and make a mistake as bad as I just did. There are solutions and this is one that worked for me.

Two Final Cut Pro X tips for cleaning up your files

Tip One: Consolidating Files

If you create a new package using Final Cut Pro X it is quite possible for you to have your files all over the place. I have done this more than once due to being under a deadline to get the work out the door.

Here is a little tip that can help you later then find the files in one place.

In the Project Library view mode, just put your mouse over the project you want to consolidate. Right click and you will get a similar screen that I have up above.

Select "Consolidate Project Media" as your choice.

If they are already in the same place then you will not be able to go further, but it is possible to have your media imported into another events folder and your project in a different project folder.

The advantage of consolidating is saving the file for you to come back later and make edits.

Tip Two: Organization of Files

Go and buy Event Manager X.

Final Cut Pro X will run better when one one project and event is open at a time. This will give you the best speed and performance out of the program.

Event Manager X will see all the events and projects you have in the file folders of Final Cut Pro X. By checking and unchecking your "Events" and "Projects" within Event Manager X it will then move all those files unchecked into "Hidden Folders" that you can see easily through the program.

All you do is check on the "Events" and "Projects" that you want to open and then click on the "Move Events and Projects" and it will move everything for you. I keep the "Re-open Final Cut Pro X" always checked so that when I click it opens Final Cut Pro X with just what I need open.

Bonus Tip

Keep all your Events and Projects on an external hard drive. Your computer needs extra space on the hard drive to run Final Cut Pro X. Keep at least 20% free space on your system drive.

Those tips save me loads of time and help keep my projects all organized.