By mistake I renamed the external drives of media on an existing project. How do I restore the Directory?

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Level 1

8 points

By mistake I renamed the external drives of media on an existing project. How do I restore the Directory?

I was given a list on paper of 4 drives with a brief description of their content. When I connected them to the computer they appeared with different names. I renamed them according to the paper list.... Bad mistake! I didn't know that you must never change the name of external drives! Is there any way to restore the Directory?

The project was in FCP 7, shot in HD, in NTSC. Many thanks for any suggestion.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Aug 31, 2015 11:07 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

David Harbsmeier

Level 7

30,089 points

Sep 1, 2015 5:47 AM in response to RuthSchell

With FCP closed, change the drive names back to what they were. Then launch the FCP project.

- or -

Manually reconnect every media file that was associated with the project.

-DH

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Answer 2

RuthSchell Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 1, 2015 9:16 AM in response to David Harbsmeier

Thank you very much David for both your solutions. Unfortunately - and I should have written it in my question - I didn't write down the original names of the drives before renaming them according to the list I was given. First mistake!! So your 1st solution - which I considered at the time - is not possible.

For the 2nd one if I used "Reconnect Media" I'd have to see if the name of the drive appears in the answer window? I am not on the job anymore. But your response shows me that all is not lost!!! Thank you very much for that!

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Answer 3

Meg The Dog

Level 6

13,561 points

Sep 1, 2015 10:51 AM in response to RuthSchell

The Reconnect panel will display the file path where FCP expected to find the file:

The drive it was looking for is the text that precedes the ":".

MtD

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Answer 4

RuthSchell Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 1, 2015 1:57 PM in response to Meg The Dog

Dear Meg, so the original names of the drives would be written before the ":" in the Reconnect Files window? Great! But how will I know which

of the 4 renamed drives it's referring to? I guess by opening one drive at a time? It makes total sense. I will try and contact the owners of the drives to try out your method and let you know. For now, a big THANK YOU for this solution!

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