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FCPX Won't List Two External Hard Drives In Event Library! Why?

FCPX won't list two of my 6 external hard drives in the Event Library, including my all-important video hard drive (a 2TB drive I use for my videos). There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of my drives. They work in Finder and in every app I have, and Disk Utility says that they are perfectly fine. These two drives show up as "Cameras" in FCPX for some reason. All the other drives show up fine in FCPX, even the drive I use for my Time Machine Backups. The two missiung drives are formatted exactly the same as the drive that do show up (Mac Journalled) -- there is literally no difference between the drives, so there shouldn't be a problem for FCPX but there is.


Does anyone know why two drives don't appear in the Event Viewer (or appear as "Cameras") while 4 other drives appear perfectly well???


I can't recommend FCPX if I can't access my video hard drive!


Any help woould be greatly appreciated.


Thanks,

-- John

Final Cut Pro X, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Jan 23, 2012 12:58 PM

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37 replies

Jan 23, 2012 1:10 PM in response to Paul Cuciti

Hi Paul,


Sorry about posting in 3 spots. You never know which topic has gone dead, so I wanted to post in a few to give me a better shot of finding someone who could offer some help!


All 6 HDs mount to the desktop with no issues. They are all formatted the same way, all connect by USB, and all work in every other app I use (Photoshop, Final Cut Express, etc). I thought I would finally give FCPX a chance, even after all the negative press. I would be willing to purchase it to go alongside my FC Express, but if it can't access my video drive then why bother?


Any thoughts???


Best Regards,

John

Jan 23, 2012 1:29 PM in response to Pancenter

I can import files for my Video HD (eg. video clips, sound files, etc) but it would be much more helpful and user-friendly to see the drive and it's folder listed in the Event Library and Project Library.


I agree with you about FCPX being un-Apple like. I don't know how a company like Apple, that prides itself on producing the best products, could release FCPX -- it boggles the mind. I suspect that Steve Jobs didn't see the final product or he would have sent the developers back to the drawing board.

Jan 23, 2012 2:04 PM in response to johng67

Is one of the drives a backup of another?

Do any two drives have the same names?

With identical file or folder names on two drives, FCP X throws a wobbly.


I share your frustrations with FCP X but having used it intensively since it was launched, I recently installed Snow Leopard on one of my drives and put FCP 7 on it.


Oh boy! Is FCP 7 FRUSTRATING after you've had the luxury of FCP X (even with all its glitches).


And if you want to see a catalogue of crashes and freeze-ups, take a trip to the FCS forum - I don't think FCP 7 is the paragon it's made out to be!

Andy

Jan 23, 2012 6:48 PM in response to johng67

johng67 wrote:


Hi andynick,


None of the drives is a backup of another. None have the same names. It makes no sense why FCPX would do this if all the drives are in excellent shape, are formatted and connected in the same way, and none is a backup of another....


Surely FCPX is not limited to the number of drives it can see... the drives that are showing as "Cameras", where are they in the chain?


Also, on the video drives... are all of the video files in folders or are there video files in the root level?


What happend if you remove your Time Machine Backup drive and reboot?

Jan 24, 2012 7:18 AM in response to johng67

Just a wild guess here: could it be that these drives have some folders in it that may be fooling FCP X into believing they are actually camera drives?

If you, for example, insert an SD card in your mac, then it might show as camera archive not because it is an SD card, but because of some folder structure inside it.

Typical digital camera cards have folders named like "DCIM" or similar. I imagine that an unfortunately named folder at the root of the drive may be throwing FCP X off the right course.

Jan 24, 2012 7:44 AM in response to johng67

Hi Luis. Thast is a good thought, but I don't have folders like that on any of my hard drives. Usually I have two main folders on my HDs - "Photo" and "Video". Within those I have many folders, but not named anything like the folder names that memory cards use.


I really don't want to manually copy massive amount of Gigs to another drive. There is no reason why the 2TB drive shouldn't be recognized as a HD by FCPX.


I know that USB isn't a very good connection but unfortunately most HDs are still USB based, and there are many more slots for USBs in the back of an iMac than there are slots for FireWire. So far USB hasn't given me a problem (except for the issue I'm having with FCPX right now).

Jan 24, 2012 7:58 AM in response to johng67

What should work and what actually works are not always the same thing in this brave new world of X.


If the drives mount on your desktop, and if FCX recognizes them in some form, then there are no "hardware issues". It sounds like a logical problem, perhaps in the way the drives are named (if not the folders).


Suppose you go ahead and "import from camera" using the drives as they exist now; FCX will want to 'move' the footage into an event library and that may be all you have to do. Of course, that's just a work-around, it doesn't change the nature of the problem.


new thought; how did the video footage get on the drive in the first place? Maybe you have to rethink your workflow.

Jan 24, 2012 8:02 AM in response to Alfredo Jahn

Thanks Alfredo!


I didn't realize that FireWire drives could be chained togther in sequence! That's great to know. I will start looking at FW drives from now on.


I haven't contacted Apple Support because I haven't bought the product yet and I figure that they probably only provide support once the product is bought. It's the old conundrum that too many companies don't seem to understand -- they don't provide service until you buy the product, but how are we supposed to feel comfortable buying the product if you don't provide service for the trial version that we're having issues with? Ah well...

Jan 24, 2012 8:10 AM in response to Paul Cuciti

Thanks Paul. There is no real mystery to the way the drives are named either. They are named Johns 1TB1, Johns 1TB2, Johns1TB3, etc with the latest drive being Johns 2TB5. The two drives that show up as "Cameras" in FCPX are Johns 2TB5 and Johns 1TB, while the rest show up as "Drives". No logical sense to this issue, huh?


When I import files from the 2TB drive they show up as a New Event on my Mac's Hard Drive. The 2TB drive still won't get listed in the Event Library.


As for getting the footage onto the HD in the first place, I have a FireWire card reader. I copy & paste the files from the CompactFlash card directy into a new sub-folder on the 2TB drive.

Jan 24, 2012 9:25 AM in response to johng67

I would be surprised that FCX can look down into a subfolder and see the CFcard copy and think 'it must be a camera', but I think that might cause the issue.


"Create Camera Archive" is an option on the 'import to camera' window. From what I understand, you should first create the camera archive from your CFcard (or camera) & then import your footage from the archive.

FCPX Won't List Two External Hard Drives In Event Library! Why?

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