I can play an .mov file but cannot open it to move it to another drive/disc/etc. When we try to open it, we get a message that says "The movie file for "beanmine.mov" cannot be found. Without this file, the movie cannot play properly."

We can play a .mov file (a full-length film created in final cut pro) but cannot actually open it in QuickTime. We get the error message saying that a file is missing, and the movie can't play properly without the file. The thing is, we can play the film, we just can't open it to move it to another drive. Help?

Sounds like you created a "Reference" file here. I.e., a "Reference" file is a file that tells the player how to play the data contained in a "Resource" file. When you try to open the "Reference" file in the QT Player app, the first thing the player does is check to see if the "Resource" data file is is still available where it is supposed to be. (I.e., moving/deleting the resource file or moving reference file without moving the resource file to maintain the relative path between the two will generate the error message you mentioned.)

Also, can the lost file (which was deleted) be recovered from a Mac HD or an external hard drive?

That depends. Deleting a file does not actually erase the data immediately. Instead, the operating system just tells the system directory that the space containing the movie data is available for reuse if/when needed. As time passes, the chance that some of the data sectors will be re-written by other data continuously increases. To restore the file normally requires use of a special utility that both locates and restores all of the linked sectors containing the "deleted" movie data in their correct order. Other methods of restoring files would depend on the software you routinely have active on your system. For instance, do you use "TimeMachine?" or orther software that automatically backs up your data periodically? If so, then follow the instructions for your particular application to recover a deleted file.

The actual problem is that we are trying to mov the file to an external drive so that we can burn it onto a dvd for mass production. How can we open it, move it and get it to the dvd?

If the original project file is still available, you could re-export the finished file as a "standalone" file that could then be moved mormally at the "Finder" level. If both resource file and reference files are still available, you can move both files to the target drive at the "Finder" level—just be sure to maintain their relative paths between one another. (E.g., if both files are in the same folder, simply copy both files to a common folder on the target drive.) If there is a format issue between drives that prevents a direct copy of both files at the "Finder" level, then ZIP or "image" the files to a common container and copy that container to your target drive and decompress the files normally.

At this point, we have not recovered the missing files. We believe that because the movie will play, that there is some hope for moving it to an external drive or a disc. Is there some way to override or bypass the error message to move and open the file as it is, if it will play?

I personally do not know of any way to force the file to open in the QT Player. The real question here is "How are you playing the file?"

Because the movie will actually play without a problem, is there another place we can look to recover the deleted file?

That would depend on how you are "playing" the file.

Basically, we are hoping to get some information that will help us overcome the missing file, move the .mov file to a hard drive and complete the task of getting the film on dvd.

On the one hand, if the data is missing, then there is no data to be played, moved, saved, or copied. If the movie is playing in a QT app, then the data must exist somewhere—as a project resource, a moved resouce file that the QT Player can't find but which still exists on the hard drive, or as cached data. Until you can tell me how you are playing the file, I can't even hazard a guess at what is going on. Basically I need to know two things—in what app the video is playing and what kind of a file was deleted (e.g., resource, project, source, etc).