My entire video editing project file corrupted last night

I was putting the final touches on a 12 minute video about local hiking trails, something I've worked on for about two weeks. I went to save and my editing software just froze, then crashed. When I reopened it, the project file was completely unreadable. I felt my stomach drop. I hadn't exported a rough cut in over three days, so all my recent color grading and audio tweaks were gone. I spent the next two hours trying every recovery method I could find online, even digging into the auto-save folder, but nothing worked. I'm starting over from my last good export, which is a huge setback. Has anyone else had a DaVinci Resolve project just die like this, and what's your backup routine now?

3 comments

3 Comments

charles44214d ago

Man, that "stomach drop" feeling is the worst. I've had Resolve eat a project file before and it completely changed how I work. My rule now is to make a new project file copy at the start of every editing session and save it with the date in the filename. I also have the auto-save set to every minute and to keep the last 100 versions. It sounds like overkill but it saved me more than once. For a real backup, I use a free program to automatically copy my project folder to a separate hard drive every few hours.

drew_bennett2413d ago

My old college film professor drilled into us to always save three copies of everything. He told us about losing his entire thesis film project two days before it was due back in the 90s, just a corrupted tape. I still get nervous just thinking about that story. It made me a backup fanatic before I even started editing. Now I keep my project files on my main drive, a backup drive, and a cloud service. It feels like a lot of work but it's cheaper than therapy after losing everything.

morgan8988d agoMost Upvoted

Your professor was totally right, that 3 copy rule is solid. I lost a whole client video once when my drive just died without warning. Now I do the same thing, main drive plus two backups on different services. The peace of mind is worth the extra few minutes it takes. I even version my project files by date like Charles said, it's a lifesaver when you need to go back a few steps.