So this evening I thought I would make a start on editing the video from Worldcon, and the first thing I needed to do was up upload the video from the Hugo ceremony from the Flip camera to the computer. So I did a bit of housekeeping, and then transferred the files. I started up the video editing software and looked for something to edit.
All of the previous Worldcon videos that I had saved were gone. The Hugo ceremony stuff was there OK, but the videos from the masquerade, and the video of John Picacio’s art exhibition, were all gone.
I looked in the recycle bin. Nothing. I got out the file undelete software. Nothing. The videos had been completely wiped.
I know what I did. The video transfer software has a folder that it uses on the computer. The missing video files had been stored there. When I tidied things up I moved the files to subdirectories within that folder. And when I loaded the transfer software it found directories that it didn’t recognize and deleted them.
Well, didn’t just delete them, it wiped them beyond all hope of recovery. (I suspect they were overwritten by the newly uploaded files.)
What kind of pea-brained moron writes software that does this I cannot say. However, once bitten, twice shy. I shall not make that mistake again. From now on every time I upload videos from the camera I will immediately back them up to some other location on the hard drive. If you happen to have a Flip camera, I advise you to do the same thing too.
Ah well, at least that’s less video that I have to process. But damn, that was really good footage that I lost.
If it’s a Windows box download one of the many file recovery tools out there – the files won’t be gone per se (Windows just renames them to “invisible” names, for later over-writing). You should be able to do a scan and recover most of what you’ve lost. It’s most unlikely that any new files will be in the same place…
That’s the second thing I tried (after checking the recycle bin). There’s absolutely no sign of the missing files.
Damn.
I’m wondering if any of the deeper scan tools might work, like O&O Unerase. The trouble is that they don’t seem to provide trial versions so you can at least see if they work. There’s a copy on the latest PC Pro cover disk – but of course you’re in the US at the moment.
One thing to consider is that while the Flip stores files on the desktop, that’s of course actually a folder under your user directory.
You might also want to run a flash undelete tool on the Flip itself – it’s surprising how much data stays on those devices.
I did think of that. I’ve been checking through their support site. it says on there that once videos are deleted from the camera they are unrecoverable, but that may not be true.
It also warns you about messing with the upload folder, but that’s a pretty stupid place to have the warning.
The Flip doesn’t store files on the desktop. It creates a special folder under My Documents. I know where it is.
I’ll maybe try one or two other undelete programs in the morning.
“The Flip doesn’t store files on the desktop. It creates a special folder under My Documents”
Ah, you must have a different model from mine – that’s where it decided transferred files were going to have to go on my machines…