EMERGENCY

[bslanger]

Hello, and I guess emergency is the only way to put this....an entire wedding, over 1,200 files are simply GONE.
Needless to say, the bride will NOT BE HAPPY if I can't figure this out.  HELP IS WELCOME.

Here is the scenario, and I'll try to be clear.  I try to follow Peter's protocol as close as possible, as an overview.
I am working on a Mac Pro, running Leopard, 7 gigs of RAM, and two eSata external Burley cases, and four internal
drives on the Mac Pro. 

Friday night, I photographed a wedding.  I used Image Ingester Pro to load 5 Sandisk 4 and 8 gig cards.  I created a meta data temple
in Bridge, and have a record in the Bridge listing that I did indeed create a template, so that's one indicator I actually
loaded the files. I went to look in my 01_Rename and Metadata folder on my first Working Folder drive to look for the folder.. and.... did not see any folder.
I checked the backup drive that I use on Image Ingester, and did not see the folder.  I used Spotlight to search by the first 6 characters of
the wedding date: 080502....nothing.  I put in the Bride's last name: Brown, nothing.

I then panicked that perhaps I did not remember to load the cards onto the computer after the wedding.  I then checked Image Ingester logs,
and it showed that I did 'successfully' load the 5 cards.  So then I felt a bit better, that the files must be there somewhere. 

Peter suggested running Repair Permissions, which I did.  I restarted.  I used Disk Warrior 4.1 (Leopard compatible), and restarted....nothing.
Nothing...

The worst case scenario I can imagine as the only possible way this happened is that perhaps the files were somehow loaded into another folder,
and that that folder got trashed.  I did photograph two weddings on Saturday, and then two portraits on Sunday (insane, I know), so I have
re-formatted and written over the cards at least once.  I called Drive Savers, and if I wrote over the cards completely, there is nothing that they can do.
Another thought is that I use Chrono Sync to run auto back ups from my Working Folder to the 2nd internal drive.  If somehow the folder was
erased, and then Chronosync would have followed suite and eliminated it as well.

I hope this has been clear....
I used Image Ingester, loaded the cards onto one internal drive, and then a second internal drive that is the back up for the Image Ingester Pro ingestion process.
I then re-used the same cards for other jobs.  Today, Tuesday, I went to look for Friday's wedding folder, and could not find it.  I could not find it on
either the main drive, the back up drive, or the back up to the Burly drive.  I used Spotlight to search for the name, and for the date, and nothing.
I repaired permissions, restarted, and ran Disk Warrior 4.1.  Nothing. All I have as evidence is the Bridge Metadata template I created, as well
as the Image Ingester record, showing the successful ingestion of the five cards.

This could be a true disaster if I cannot find the files. 
Any help will be MOST appreciated.

Not to be redundant, but I will also post this is the Image Ingester forum.
I have not YET started to panic.


Sincerely,
Brian Slanger

[frankgindc]

Arghhh.  I can't imagine that you slept at all last night so you might have already considered this but since the memory cards are probably not going to help then the best hope seems to be that the files are on your HD somewhere, but were misnamed or misplaced, and so they're not coming up in your searches.   

Maybe the import routine did not use whatever file naming convention you intended so they are saved under entirely different names that you wouldn't pick up using Spotlight.  Or did you accidentally load the "brown" job using the metadata or file naming convention intended for one of the other jobs you did?   Or did one of your jobs later in the weekend use the same file naming convention that would have cause them to overwrite the previous job?   Is it possible that the "created" date that your camera applied might be incorrect -- in which case searching by date wouldn't work?   Or that the "brown" metadata wasn't applied to the files.   

I'm not at my Mac right now, but you could use the "Find" command from a folder and it will let you search better than Spotlight.   FYI, on my old Powerbook (and under Panther) I noticed an issue where Spotlight and the Find command seemed to only work down to 4 or 5 levels within folders -- they would both miss files that were nested more than that.  I used a shareware program called FileBuddy and that was able to find files that Find/Spotlight could not. I have no idea if that's still the case under Leopard but worth a shot.

And I assume you've checked your Trash folder to see if files are there?  Also, I'm not sure what the Trash folder will display if there are multiple drives connected to it (you might get only the contenst from one of the drives) but grasping at straws here.

Good luck,
Frank

[markpirozzi]

Trash Folder - the Trash Folder will show deleted files for only volumes that are currently mounted.  For searching, you will want to mount any drive/volume that may have been mounted when a possible deletion occured.

Hopefully, the II logs will help find the files.

Mark

[bslanger]

Thank you for the tips.  It's possible they are sitting SOMEWHERE on the 8 or 9 Terabytes on drives. 
I will try the 'find' command, and see if that helps.  I agree that Spotlight does not go very deep,
though there may be settings to change that.  I had not considered that files got over written.
And regrettably, I did not know Image Ingester well enough, as I did not have the 'log' setting checked,
so I don't have much record other that it shows the cards were succesfully ingested. 
Next step is trying to find the files.

Here's what I wrote to Peter, who has been, as always, very helpful:

Hi Peter,
No getting around Operator Error.

I clearly do not have a full handle on II Pro.
Where can I find the info to set it up correctly so that:
 1. The designated folders are set up automatically, and I don't have to set them manually in prefs.
 2. The 2nd back up is not deleted, unless manually
 3. The files are handed off to Bridge
 4. Anything else you recommend.

I just bought a Seagate 1 TB external eSata drive to use as the
2nd back up, one that will NOT be linked to Chronosync.

I also bought, though pricey, the Epson P5000.  I plan on backing the cards
up to that FIRST, before anything goes onto the workstation, and then ONLY deleting
files from the P5000 when I the files are verifed in the final resting location of the Orignals drive,
the Originals drive is backed up, the DRV jpgs have been made, and  the DRV drive backed up.

It seems the hole in MY system was the way I had II set up, plus just being far too overextended.

I plan to not touch the working drive with anything new, and use the new Seagate 1TB for a temporary working folder,

?
I plan on dropping the suspect working folder on a new Ivew catalog, set to small icons, to see what it records.
Any harm in searching for what's on the drive that way?
Any harm in running Disk Warrior a 2nd time?

Will post the same on the forum.

If I still can't find anything, I will run PhotoRescue on the Working Drive to the new 1 TB drive,
and see what I get.

[andris]

Hi Brian,

Sorry to hear about your troubles.  Sorry if I'm stating the obvious, but have you tried using the finder to search for files added or modified at about the time you think you copied the cards to the hard drives?  With all your drives in, it might take a long time to run, but it might find your files tucked away somewhere strange and named something unexpected.

With the steps you've run so far, it doesn't sound like you have physical corruption issues...so maybe all is not lost?

Good luck,

Andris

[bslanger]

Hi Andris,
thanks.  Not quite sure how I would put in the specific dates/times in the search?
Just upgraded to Leopard, so not sure how to make dates/times in the finder.

[andris]

Hi Brian,

I'm a PC user, so I had to look around for these links a bit

http://www.mcelhearn.com/article.php?story=20071114093450231
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/15155.html

Looks like all you have to do is type "date:5/5/08-5/6/08" into spotlight to find all the files created between 5/5 and 5/6 (I think you could even add specific times if you knew them).  You could also add a "kind: images" to only look for images created within those dates.

If your files have disappeared to some mystery corner of your hard drives, this should track them down.

Hope this helps,

Andris

[bslanger]

Thanks for taking the time to look that up, I appreciate it.
I tried it, and regrettably no files showed up that were the ones I need.

This is just the most bizarre, and unfortunate thing, I just don't see the files anywhere.

I've tried recovery software, searches, Iview searches, etc.  All I have is an Image Ingester record
that the files went on the drives.  It's like they just vanished. 

I just bought the Intego virus/firewall suite for the Mac, and had it search all
3 million plus files.  At this point, I'm trying anything and everything. 

Thanks,
Brian

[bslanger]

Here's what I have done so far:
+Repaired permissions on all drives
+Ran Disk Warrior
+Restarted
+Dropped each drive on an new Iview Catalog, to visually see what files I have on each drive
+Ran the Intego Virus Scan on the whole computer
+Manually search some folders where they 'could' have gone
+Ran Photo Rescue on one of the two drives where they were supposed to go.
  - I will run Photo Rescue on the other drives
+Done an advanced search in Finder by date ranges
+Ran Photo Rescue on all the cards

I can still call/consult a disk recovery outfit, and see how many ten's of thousands of dollars it would be for them
to check out the drives.

Here's what I have added for FUTURE redundancy:
+Bought an Epson P5000 80 gig portable drive, to back up on the spot
+Added 5 new 8 gig to my existing card base, so I can shoot forever before having to re-use cards
+Bought new Gepe hard plastic flash card holders in different colors, so I can keep the cards
  separate, and coded by color
+Started using two Seagate portable USB powered drives to hook to the Epson P5000, so that I have
  three backups plus the cards, before the cards even hit my workstation
+Bought a 1 TB Seagate external drive, to use another Working folder back up location, that will NOT be tied
 to the regular back up system that is handled by Chronosync.
+Enabled the 'log' setting of Image Ingester

When I have time, I will re-think and further re-fine all this.
Right now though, it's just not looking good for finding these wedding files.
And, the worst part, other than just having ZERO trace of them, is that I don't really know
what happened.   

The files either were on the drive, and somehow got trashed, and deleted, and then ChronoSync
backed up my error (I have have the 1 TB Seagate that will not be tied to the ChronSycn), or
they straight out just vanished, or, someone via the net came and wiped them out, or the Mac
has some new strange horror event where it loses images, or Image Ingester did not actually
put the files on the computer, or my bad attitude of doing too many weddings cast a spell
on the files so I would be taught a lesson, or....or...or......

[andris]

Wow, this sounds terrible...sorry for your bad luck.

Does Chronosync maintain any kind of log so at least you would know for your post-mortem whether it had anything to do with the problem?

Andris

[Marc Rochkind]

Brian--

To add to your list:

Set IIP's pre-ingestion backup to a folder on a permanently-mounted external drive and do not change it with each ingestion. That way you will always get a copy of what was ingested from the card, regardless of anything you do before, during, or after ingestion on the primary drive.

Do not ever trash, sync, or otherwise cleanup or optimize the backup drive. Don't let Spotlight or Time Machine mess with it, either. When it fills, get a new one.

--Marc

[bslanger]

In the end, I have searched long and hard with software and manually, but cannot find the files.
I suspect that none of the files actually hit my hard drives, as I usually would recover at least
ONE file from the wedding when running recovery software, but I did not get even one hit.
In the end, I guess I'll never know with 100% certainty, but again, I suspect, through note
taking on the third wedding, that the files never actually made it from the cards to my drives.
I now have the extra layers of backup on site and off, and hope to never do this again.
I will now do things manually, so I will have to visually see the files at every step.
I refunded the bride the entire payment, even though I had over half the wedding.
She  seemed ok, but obviously upset.
What a lesson. 
Back up, backup, backup again, and then again, and then a few more times to be sure.
Also, I am really glad I have the Epson P5000.  Definitely worth the cost.
Thanks for the help to everyone that made suggestions.

[BobSmith]

just read this painful thread...

One note about using Chronosync (or any other sync software with similar features).  ALWAYS set it to move deleted files to another folder rather than actually trashing them.  I learned that years ago in a scenario similar to what you guess might have happened.  I use Chronosync religiously to mirror a number of drives.  I set it move delted files to an "archived" folder.  I never touch that folder on the backup drive until the drive is full.  At that time I'll go in there an manually delete the items that I know are safely stored away where they should be in order to free up enough space for Chronosync to continue doing it's magic.  It takes a bit more time, but even just this week my check of that folder found some valuable personal files had been accidently trashed on the main drive.

Bob Smith