new assistants first BIG mistake

[7rojo7]

Instead of highlighting "select unused" he accidentally Highlighted "Selected All" and proceeded to delete a whole song.
There was no recording done on the disc after this mistake.
I know the files are still there, and if found can be relinked by their unique IDs. As I've never dealt with this before. What is the best procedure? Can I do it without a program like disc warrior?
Even if I have disc Warrior, how would I go about recovering the files by 6:00PM tomorrow?
The disc is a SanMP volume and I'm leaving run until I get this song back.
Would there be any particular problems any one knows about using a recovery program on a SanMP volume?
I guess I'll be backing up the rest of this disc!
Thanks in advance

[CeretoneAudio]

Why didnt you just do UNDO?

[wwittman]

I hate to be unhelpful, but... you don't have a back-up?

[KingUgly]

UnErase on Norton Utilities works well. Disc Warrior will also have something similar. You've done right not to record to the disc at all. It should recover everything.

[stag]

Ontrack EasyRecovery Pro .

The other day i was trying to recover some ZIP drives , marked unreadable by XP .
In the process of formatting it , i formated the partition were i had y last twoo tunes.
The Ontrack app recorver that with MFT and all , everything on its folder et al .
Quite impressive . It took about 1 hour and half , but it worked well .

[ihate100bees]

What about "system restore"? maybe it could bring you back to the time before he threw them away? Good luck.

[7rojo7]

Thanks everyone
Undo doesn't work when you delete from the region bin
The song was just recorded, no backup
Although I'm saving my pennies for some kind of RAID 5 automatic copy as you go system, I don't have it yet, I'm planning on putting it in my Magma expansion chassis which has space for 8 SATA drives and I have 4 PCI slots available. I was looking at Granite Digital's 8 channel SATA RAID PCI card and drives as this was happening
I have the particular problem of being in the middle of nowhere when it comes to APPLE products, if anyone knows of a product I can download it might; no it's too late, I have to drive far.
Disc warrior or Norton?

[drmmrboy]

Originally Posted by stag

Ontrack EasyRecovery Pro .

I've used it... Worked flawlessly!
Actually recovered more than the size of the drive...
As long as you haven't written to the drive since the files were deleted, You should be OK.

Andrew

[Zarathustra]

If I could speak with your assistant for a moment.....

"Come into my office, because you're ****ing fired!"

Carry on,

Z

[7rojo7]

I put up another post which professed maybe no operator error, It still happened to him and not me (directly), I didn't see what happened.
but it seems by the state the session was left in that something else might have happened.
All the regions are still in the tracks, greyed out, the fades are there and still play back, when this thing happened some how 10 midi regions were generated at the same time, all the region names are still in the bin but they're in italics. I know that this means that digibase knows the files are supposed to be in the session and will look for them until kingdom comes (excuse the biblical connotation)
We as an after tracking editing policy "select unused regions" and "clear selected" with the delete command before copying the session to another location for safe keeping, just a way of keeping things tidy. He was in the process of doing this in our agreed upon in house manner when this strange thing happened. If all the files had been deleted then there would be nothing on the tracks and nothing in the region bin, but they've remained as they were except that they have nothing attached to them.
I'm not sure what happened. Files that have been deleted are simply unaddressed and the space is allocated as writable, if I haven't written to the disc, chances are that the files are still there but no one knows where.
I've backed up and isolated this disk (part of a 4 drive SAN from SNS).
I've downloaded data recovery X, recommended by DIGITECH SUPPORT, I ran it and it didn't find anything, but I only tried once, I have a session tonight, I transferred a whole project (and everything else that's a current project) to my 250GB internal SATA which works fine. I had some transferring problems within the SAN but I don't think that's the problem. I'm still waiting for SNS to answer me.
I think my assistant did one of those stunts you'd think only 3 year olds could do by mistake. Like defining the DNA code in 5 seconds.
Here where I am there are not hundreds of eligible candidates for something as serious as working with musicians. My assistant is diplomaed (?) in music from a national conservatory for oboe, programs lightly and sings for "piano bar" gigs, is in a band, and has helped a great deal during some rough periods and he can speak music. He was mortified and I'm sure he will not do this mistake again. The biggest mistakes I've made which got me fired were fighting with the posse while they were trying to roll out the 2" machine onto Essex street.

[sleepwalker]

Originally Posted by ihate100bees

What about "system restore"? maybe it could bring you back to the time before he threw them away? Good luck.

System restore isn't meant for this type of thing. In fact, I turn off system restore. I don't need windows grabbing a huge chunk of disc space.

[NemoTracks]

I agree with djui5.
If the files are just greyed out you may be able to "import audio to track".
I'd try this first before using a restore prg.

[7rojo7]

Well, here's what happened.
He first deleted all the files, then realizing that he made a booboo, closed the session without saving thinking that his actions would be forgotten by PT, which they were, and he could go through our normal cleaning process once the nice audio files were back in the bin again, except that they'd been deleted and PT forgot where they were.
Mistake N°1 - he should have called me right away and let me make the rest of the mistakes, no that's mistake N°2, N°1 was deleteing all the file in the region bin.
Mistake N°3 was letting me go on investigating for a sleepless day and a half to finally surmise what had happened before explaining to me in a comprehansive way what had happened.
So, files gone, I recovered about 20 with a program that seems like it works but the drive had been used after the fact and 75 files could not be recovered. I found a lot of files with only noise but still had the wav extension but no unique id. noise.
Thanks to every one who replied it has helped me resolve this situation and I've found some pretty neat utility products.. My assistant has learned many a valuable lesson and is more serious as a result. specially after seeing the getting fired part
I was looking at products to prevent this as it was happening, I'm saving my pennies.

[NeoVXR]

ontrack does a lot of "low level" stuff which means in fact very high knowledge.
they are working closely together with drive manufacturers and the major operating system vendors.
so I would thrust their recovery software and servicing processes.

make sure that the operating system has no other job on the drive, besides your project. else you can't stop the digital jinns writing to the drive after the error.

[7rojo7]

yeah, the digital jinns. >did it in>
To tell the truth I would have tried something similar, maybe, but I didn't have the chance. My assistant still doesn't understand why he couldn't revert to the prior state with the Don't Save command (he does realize the power of the delete command from the region bin though, we're getting there). It's possible I would have shut everything off and had a chance to recover all the files if I'd known exactly what happened.
Drummer and bass player arriving at 5;30 Spoleto time
2 violins, cello, accordeon, 5 sopranos, 7 tenors, 4 contraltos, 6 Basses after
Again thanks to all who've replied, it has helped.

[crypticglobe]

What software are you using? It seems rediculous that it could be that easy to permenantly delete files. It's funny... on the Cubase and Nuendo forums about every 3 or 4 months some joker will come complaining that is too HARD to permentantly delete a file. LOL. You can never permentantly delete a file from the arrange window. I think this is how it should be. You have to go through several step and always answer the important question "yes or no" to permanently delete.

I think it's a major oversight in software design not to have this kind of setup empolyed.... and congratulations... you have just demonstrated why.

[7rojo7]

I guess, maybe?
But I also delete takes if they aren't good directly after (appleZ) if need be.
I also like to keep my choice of editing material limited so I don't suffer from brain fragmentation (worse than disc fragmentation).
This project is a considerable chore to get good takes let alone manage them.
Normally the artists I work with don't need to be tuned or moved, maybe a punch here and there, If I'm recording for a record company I back up all out takes (normally not many, or full or incomplete takes), if it's in house I delete as I go, I have an SNS SAN AV and fragmentation has never been a problem.
Planning on getting a SATA RAID so I CAN KEEP EVERY LITTLE TID BIT, but I don't have it yet, It'll fit in my MAGMA 7 slot chassis.
This was plain late night not paying attention, and I'm glad it happened on this project (to the dismay of the producer) because it is the first project that he has operated the system and now he knows more. This project is for an amateur association that I gave a really good deal to use the studio to finish a 16 song project, unlimited hours, musicians playing for free, new assistant learning the ropes (only I have to keep the studio open for his/(and my) mistake.
Never happened to me and it will never happen to him again. I check the files I delete beforehand and unselect those I know I want to keep.
The next step was backup, ironic. If you delete from the region bin from PT i's close to permanent, you can't use the disc, not even to close the program if you want a chance at recovering all the files.
In PT the region bin is indeed small, normally it works well, he wasn't paying attention, which according to me is as important as the golden rule (do unto others as etc..., pay attention, if it doesn't feel good don't do it).

[cajonezzz]

Man.... I never , ever "delet" from disk. Always remove.

To make things tidy:

Save tune as " tune- cleaned"
Select unused regions
REMOVE unused regions from session

do a " save a copy in" to another folder/drive destination.

Drag the version ( with all the unused stuff and previous session doc ) to a FW archival drive.

Continue working on the newly dated and "cleaned" version ( I'm usually mixing at this point )
The FW drive with EVERYTHING is intact and given to the client.
You never know when you may need some thing buried in a previous take .. or?

Delete, when not currently backed up... is dangerous and unnecessary.

He'll probably not ever do it again!
learning the hard way... we've all done it.

[crypticglobe]

Originally Posted by cajonezzz

Man.... I never , ever "delet" from disk. Always remove.

To make things tidy:

Save tune as " tune- cleaned"
Select unused regions
REMOVE unused regions from session

do a " save a copy in" to another folder/drive destination.

Drag the version ( with all the unused stuff and previous session doc ) to a FW archival drive.

Continue working on the newly dated and "cleaned" version ( I'm usually mixing at this point )
The FW drive with EVERYTHING is intact and given to the client.
You never know when you may need some thing buried in a previous take .. or?

Delete, when not currently backed up... is dangerous and unnecessary.

He'll probably not ever do it again!
learning the hard way... we've all done it.

Yup... that's how I work too. The arrange window vs the pool in Steinberg products helps me keep ONLY what I want to use around to choose from (because it HURTS my brain to have too much stuff lying around as well), but still ON the hard drive for those.... HOLY CRAP moments.

I clean up later and get rid of what I don't need after the project is done. What is passed on to the client is agreed upon a head of time. If they want it ALL... they get it ALL. If they only want what was used in the final mix... that's what they get.

At any rate... if it's several steps to permanently delete something Cubase SX or Nuendo. If it's also that hard in your software, and you engineer STILL deleted it... I personally say that unless he/she is REALLY amazing other than this one mistake.... it's time to go. A raid won't really help you that much. When you tell it to delete something it deletes on both volumes. The only real advantage to mirrored raid is that if one of the hard drives crashes... the data is duplicated on the other one. However.... delete... is still delete.... for ALL drives in the raid.

[mrufino1]

I'm new here, been lurking for a while...In the project studio I just partnered up in, I deleted our raid array a few weeks ago, thinking that since it needed to be removed anyway, I'd just do it myself. Of course, I'd not yet backed up our first two payign projects (3 songs on 1, 1 song on the other). I called both artists, told them what happened (the whole truth), they both agreed it sucked but understood, and we redidi the stuff for free plus a little extra. Both walked away very happy in the end as the redone versions were better (the one with 3 songs had done all of his tracks on his boss hard disk recorder, so we just had to re-transfer, only really lost the drusm we cut). The moral: Let computer techs take care of the computers, back up everything in more one spot (this is now a requirement at the end of each session- dump it to the other drive and my firewire drive, periodically burn to DVD), and stop and think. ALso, I will NEVER make that mistake again. All worked out well and since it happened to me (I never thought it would, that's what I get for getting cocky) I have taken much more care with my work and heard of this happening with many other people, all of whom learned the same lesson. Hope it works out okay for you. Anyone can make a mistake, the most important thing is that you learn from it.

[jonnyclueless]

I mean this in the nicest way and am not trying to be harsh. But I think the fault lies in the prceedure you guys use. I recomend NEVER using any delete options in pro tools, especially not the one for regions/files, even if you DO select unused. Just clear them, don't delete them. You can then so 'Save session copy' and select to copy audio files. The new session copy will have only the used audio files, and you can then hold onto the original for a couple days or however long you feel it is safe (even if that is immediately) to delete the original session.

For me, with HD and DVD costs so low, I no longer bother to ever remove anything. At the studio we back every project up to HD and when it fills up, we just buy another since they are so cheap now. But everyone and every situation is different, so that's just for us. Too many labels have called to say they lost their masters.

[Riad]

After I finish tracking a project I do a "Save Session copy as" to another HD called Mix (I have a separate drive called Tracking) then in the new destination I delete unwanted audio files from the Mix drive... leaving the Tracking drive as is until I'm finished with the project.

Just a quick trick about deleting files, when the popup window askes you to Remove or Delete files and then a dialog box confirms each file to be deleted you can hold down the Alt key and hit OK - and it will delete all the files without confirming each.

Becareful about using RAID 5, that's not going to help you with deleted files, and it's not recommended for PT.

RAID 0+1 can be used, basically it's drive mirrors, but this only helps you if one of your drives craps out, if you delete files it will delete them off of both disks.

JMTC,
Rob

[enharmonic]

What a bonehead move by your assistant. I don't know what's worse...that he did it, or that he didn't tell you he did it.

Back to the coffee machine with him for a few months.