Urgent Data Loss Question
OH MAN. I recently wrapped a shoot and was handed the drive that all images were shot to. THey were additionally written to digital tech's computer and I immediately backed up.
The job was shot to a catalog rather than a session (not sure why), and previews of all images shot appear in the catalog. However, the corresponding files are not on any of the disks, nor are they on the card that was in camera. Previews are all editable, so a transfer of data took place. Though, even when running data recovery software on the external and internal, nothing is showing up.
This is the biggest data catastrophe I've ever experienced and trying to exhaust all options before having to reshoot. Has anyone heard of anythign like this and can offer any suggestions?
Thank you!
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Is the catalog managed or referenced? Sounds like managed, which uses an on-disk structure similar to sessions.
Assuming the previews don't indicate the files to be offline, you have 2 options:
1. Right-click on an image and select the appropriate "Show" option. That should take you right to the image and the others "should" be in the same place. If that doesn't work, and if you haven't yet formatted the camera's card, reconnect the camera to the computer and try again.
Or (this is my preferred method):
2. If it's a managed catalog, on a Mac right-click on the catalog "file" (which is really a package) and select "Show Package Contents". That will reveal a folder structure that includes an Originals folder that holds your images. I don't know the equivalent steps for Windows, though.
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Thanks Abbott,
The previews DO indicate that the files are offline. Any suggestions in that instance?
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Get the tech to check his computer?
Did you get the right drive?
If yes, are you seeing all of the drive?
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yes to all. He is unaware of any mass delete event and my drive and his read identical.
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Is there any instance in which a preview would be rendered without the file being written?
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Let me get this straight, you shot onto a card and then the images on the card were imported into a Capture One Catalog via its import dialog window?
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No. Shooting tethered directly to and external SSD drive. There was a card in camera, but that was not being written to.
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As Abbott correctly indicated, you need to right click the catalog and you will find your RAW images in the Originals folder. As to why it is showing they are offline I can't say.
As long as you haven't done any adjustments yet then you can still get all the RAWs out of that folder and use them in a new session.
Maybe create a new catalog and then copy paste from the old catalog everything inside the "Show Package Contents", see if it shows them correctly now.
My advice is to never use a catalog for tethering
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Yeah the files are not in the package. There is no originals folder - just thumbnails and previews. He was manually backing up and I think he botched something.
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How did he backup? What software did he use and what exactly did he back up? The straight forward option would be backing up the catalog file... Onto what did he backup? Did you right click the backup catalog file and look in there? Compared the catalog file sizes? How many pictures have you taken? Have you done a file search of the entire computer and/or backup drives?
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Can you take a screenshot of the open catalog in the Capture One window?
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Matthew,
What was the camera?
How big would you expect the files to be?
How much data do you have on you drive copy?
C1 has obviously created some Thumbnails and used its file naming and numbering. Where does the catalogue think the files should be? i.e. if you use one of the Find option from the browser thumbnail where does it go looking?
Did you by any chance have the "Composition Mode" set on? In that mode the files will not be retained but in my testing right now the thumbnails are not retained either.
I plugged a Canon Camera in and tried both internal storage in catalog and storage to an external disk.
I'm not sure if having the catalog on an external drive would make a difference but I would not expect it to. There may be no point in me trying it unless you are working with a Canon camera. Additionally I am trying this on a Windows machine not a Mac.
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Matthew,
Let's see if I have the picture. Your technician shot tethered and captured the images directly to an external SSD. There's absolutely no question that he thought the images went to the SSD as opposed to a folder on the Mac, such as the Documents, Pictures, or a Capture One folder. Right? There's absolutely no way he could have inadvertently specified an internal directory, such as by clicking "OK" without noticing the error.
Have you tried connecting the SSD to the tech's computer and seeing if the images still show as offline? Based on what you've said, I'm guessing that the images are somewhere on the tech's computer. Ask the tech to use Finder to search for one of the image filenames shown in the catalog.
Of course that still leaves the "how was the backup done" question unanswered.
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A tip to determine where the images were written to during the tethered shoot:
Open the catalog. Go to the Library tool, browse to the Folders section. There you find the external disk, obviously with a red offline indicator. Expand the folders of that disk. This tells you exactly where the images resided.
Next step, is to find that disk.
Note: if you see only the Catalog symbol in the Folders section, and no drive name, does the In Catalog item has a number next to it? If so, the images are inside the catalog.
By the way, did you know that you can transfer the previews into JPEGs including adjustments, with there size limited to the preview cached setting? Use JPEG QuickProof for processing.
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Turns out he was just backing up the files (not the catalog) by intermittently drag and dropping the whole folder from one place to another. I'm guessing he overwrote the original with his previous backup, which is why all the missing files are from the 2nd half of the day. Seems like recovery is our only option.
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That's "copy", not "backup". I hope he's learned a lesson. However, that still leaves a question. If C1 always captured to the "same" folder—eg. "Capture" or "Original" and he was copying that to another disk, then each time he tried to copy, the computer should have shown a dialog with a message like, "An item with that name already exists. Are you sure you want to replace it?" and the tech would have had to click "OK".
Data recovery MIGHT work, but SSDs operate differently from HDDs (which are often easy to recover data from), and depending on how the SSD's been used, you may not get the data back. I'm not trying to discourage you—just set realistic expectations.
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cómo recupero mi código de licencia del capture one 12!?
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