Volume Recover on an 8GB Red Flash Card

[mdo]

You could open the five files with a binary editor like WinHex (free version at http://www.winhex.com/winhex/index-m.html will do the trick) and see if you can find sequences of bytes common to the five files near the top and bottom of the files. Most signatures will be close to the top and bottom. There can be signatures significantly offset from the beginning and end, but the likelihood is much lower. If you find the signatures, you should be able to proceed with a good deal of confidence. Still might work otherwise, but less likely.

I'll kick in $10 to the pool. I'm curious what you'll find.

 

[Dylan Reeve]

Casey, can you make an image of the 'deleted' CF card with dd and upload it somewhere? It should compress up pretty small. I don't have any cards here at the moment.

 

[mdo]

Casey, can you make an image of the 'deleted' CF card with dd and upload it somewhere? It should compress up pretty small. I don't have any cards here at the moment.

It's not likely to compress small if it's a dd sector-by-sector image, since the R3D compression algorithm is presumably fairly efficient. Doubt it will squeeze up much smaller than the original file that was stored on it.

 

[Dylan Reeve]

Yeah, good point

I'll get a card again soon.

 

[Casey Green]

I'll kick in $10 to the pool. I'm curious what you'll find.

Cool. I've set up an account and put in $20 to start it at Fundable.com

https://www.fundable.com/groupactions/groupaction.2008-02-21.0551838552

As soon as we raise the goal, I'll go ahead and purchase the license and data quota to do the test.

Remember, this software continually needs to be purchased for the use of the data quota, so I will not be able to use it more than our test without paying for the next amount of data "credit". This keeps it fair, since I won't be benefiting more than anyone and the test will remain on test footage only.

I very much hope that this works as it will be a nice way to help clients feel more comfortable.

thanks everyone for contributing to the cause.

https://www.fundable.com/groupactions/groupaction.2008-02-21.0551838552

 

[Ken K]

Before you guys shell out $175 for something that can most likely be done for free, let me try it with dcfldd and Foremost. I don't have a Red CF card, but I can download some .r3d files and copy them over to a CF card, image it and see if I can extract them.

 

[Dylan Reeve]

Before you guys shell out $175 for something that can most likely be done for free, let me try it with dcfldd and Foremost. I don't have a Red CF card, but I can download some .r3d files and copy them over to a CF card, image it and see if I can extract them.

I'll try the same thing sometime soon as well with a genuine RED card.

There are few scenarios I can imagine that should be tested:
1) Card is placed in computer and all files are deleted (there are a few ways to delete, so that's more too).
2) Card is placed in computer and formatted (not recommended by RED, but it happens).
3) Card is placed in camera and formatted.

In Scenario 1, there will be differences depending on the OS and technique as well. On a Mac dragging a file to the trash creates a .Trashes directory on the device, with a directory for the user and a .Trash directory in there. This is creating quite a few new file pointers, but as the R3D files haven't actually be removed at this stage, it should no overwrite them. When the trash is emptied files in those directories may be altered or rewritten, which could overwrite sectors from the source files. In windows I believe there is a similar process, although I'm not clear on quite what changes are made.

In Scenario 2, it will depend on format tool and technique. Also, whether any further files are created after the format (again the Mac adds some of it's own meta files).

In Scenario 3 there are immediately some files created as part of the format process. These are small, but stand a good chance of clobbering sectors of previous files.

What works in one case may not work in others, or even all that often in that specific case.

 

[Casey Green]

I welcome multiple tests, however I think we should also try this software, since the other attempts I have made with over 12 different methods, haven't been successful.

I will continue with the other test when we make our goal of contributions.

Thanks everyone for helping make this happen.

http://tinyurl.com/36u9qh

 

[Garrett M. Smith]

Did anyone ever find solutions to these problems? I downloaded Foremost, but I don't know header/footer info for R3D files

I find myself facing a card issue.

Garrett

 

[Nikolai Pigarev]

I was planning on writing it for a while now but there you go:

A way of recovering footage from formatted CFs or RED RAIDs.

First a bit of history, we have managed to format a RED RAID with about 30GB of data. How? Easily nobody marked the disk, and the backup person just automatically backed up one, and it was the wrong one. Cause all that information was passed from one person to the other.

I highly recommend never to keep a single copy of your material, never to postpone the backup to the next day, and never assume everyone understood what you said

I have used FileSalvage by SubRosaSoft.com it is fairly cheap for what it does.

1) Go into Explore A Drive - EXPERT

2) Press "Supported File Formats..."

3) Drag & Drop 10 or more R3D files. To generate a signature.

4) Press "Continue" and then "Start a new scan"

5) wait...wait...wait...

6) After its done you ll notice it found 3 types of files:
R3D
QuickTime Media (Proxies)
MP3 (don't have a clue where that comes from, may be the embedded sound

Now because the RED writes files form the beginning of the media, and the media is usually formatted i found it safe to assume that the Index pretty much shows the sequence of files. First come the 4 QT Proxies then 1 R3D

But not so quick, unfortunately you can not just recover it all and be a happy camper, you need to recreate the file structure and the file names. How?

7) Recover the files and place them in folders. 4 QT Proxies and 1 R3D in each folder, according to their Index.

8) If you preview any QT file in FileSalvage it gives an error saying it can't play without some R3D file, so any QT nows the name of the R3D. Open QT in any text editor and in the first lines you ll see the name of its R3D file. Reconstruct the structure using that name.

Thats it, worked for me, i have managed to recover footage dating months back...

BUT in our case not only did we format the media we managed to write over it and then all hope is lost!!! You can recover something using statistical analysis i have been told but nobody knows how... talk to the special services they say

I hope it helps somebody. But DO BACKUP YOUR DARM MEDIA

 

[Caleb Heymann]

Thank you Nikolai! This is great news to hear that a successful recovery of R3D files is possible. I'll try and verify your process as soon as I get the chance.

 

[ericyoung]

If someone were to make a Read-ONLY compact flash reader they would sell a million of them! (Every Red user, every still photographer)

You mean like this?
http://www.digitalintelligence.com/products/forensic_card_reader/

There are others. Just google "forensic compact flash reader". When it's forensic, it's supposed to be completely read only/write blocked to avoid changing computer storage evidence in law/security enforcement.

However, whether they're as fast or reliable as Lexar/Sandisk readers or handle very large non-typical files is another question.

 

[Casey Green]

By the way, here is the thread that has the results to the Virtual Lab software recover tests from a while back:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=9205&highlight=Recover

thanks for everyone involved. With the SDK now available, it would be great if someone were to take on writing a .R3D recover application.

 

[kevinmaistros]

I probably have the most gut-wrenching story involving lost .R3D files on a music video I did for Universal Music Group's band, Puddle of Mudd. Accidently lost 3 weeks worth of footage shot in IRAQ for the video.

This was in JUNE of last year, and I'm just now getting a resolution. I'll make a new thread about the entire process, and the steps that were taken to recover the files. Many lessons learned.

 

[Spike Baumann]

Yikes! I bet you have ulcers now.

 

[Ivan Cortazar]

I probably have the most gut-wrenching story involving lost .R3D files on a music video I did for Universal Music Group's band, Puddle of Mudd. Accidently lost 3 weeks worth of footage shot in IRAQ for the video.

This was in JUNE of last year, and I'm just now getting a resolution. I'll make a new thread about the entire process, and the steps that were taken to recover the files. Many lessons learned.

Ouch, that would be great if you could post your findings to helps others. I hope you've got your files.

 

[Rob van Gelder]

OK, guys I think here is a solution to the recovery of R3D files.

My assistant stumbled upon a recovery program that he needed to un-delete/ un-format his girlfriends hard drive......


This program is named Filerecoveryangel and it does exactly what we need.
I just tested this with an 8Gb card, recorded about 40% full in 5 clips, downloaded that first on my MBP with Download manager, then went back to the camera, did a format and next I go to my WINDOWS machine to recover with Filercoveryangel!

It scans the card and find so called "lost files", which have still the original name and with their proxies and checksums, etc.

In this case I only selected the r3d files to recover, which worked flawless!
Copy to an external HD and import in your MBP, or you could use Bootcamp to switch between XP and Mac.

This is really amazing and very very re-assuring. We now have a way out of format-mistakes .
It is also a more secure feeling for and towards our clients.
I did not test a repeated format or a partial re-recording, but it might also work.
Please check it out.

Rob

 

[Ivan Cortazar]

A way of recovering footage from formatted CFs or RED RAIDs.

I have used FileSalvage by SubRosaSoft.com it is fairly cheap for what it does.

OK, guys I think here is a solution to the recovery of R3D files.

My assistant stumbled upon a recovery program that he needed to un-delete/ un-format his girlfriends hard drive......

Rob

Thanks for posting your discoveries. Because of a very unfortunate situation , I have also been in the process of trying to recover some lost footage. :crying:

Thanks Nikolai for your guide, it was really helpful. I have used filesalvage with some success. It found a lot of R3ds, even really oldones. I didn't worry so much about the quicktimes and the namings. I can create new proxies in Red alert, so I just opened the R3d in red alert and regenerate the proxies. These are my findings. R3D files that are larger than 2GB, filesalvage combines them into a longer 3rd (ie 6GB) and that causes Redalert to crash. So unless someone tell me how to split them back that leaves this program only to be able to recover short clips.

Regarding the sound. The R3d files get the sound when you regenerate the proxi in Redalert. I don't know what those mp3 files are. They won't open or play.

Rob, I am going to test that program and see if I can get some better results, specially with the over 2GB r3ds. Thanks

 

[Mauro Herce]

recovered files

recovered files

Any answer about how to split the big files?
I've the same problem with the recovering of my full red-drive...
After "filesalvage", 70% of my recovered files are bigger than 2GB,
and for the moment unusuable (2 days work)

"filerecoveryangel", not worked in my case (any r3d found),
Which version you used?

thanks a lot
mauro

 

[Anders Yarbrough]

ditto

ditto

I had an unfortunately similar experience with a little bit of an inexperienced data manager that was a political hire.

Does any one have an answer about these >2GB files? Most the takes on the lost roll are big, and I can't seem to read the >2GB files. Can we somehow get any usefull information from the recovered proxies?