Can I recover a project whose project file has been deleted?

[Mike Kujbida]

If I understand what you’re asking, search the original hard drive for the project file that has the .bak extension (eg. MarkLynch.veg.bak) as this is the Vegas project file backup.
Rename this to MarkLynch.veg and try opening it.
Odds are that you’ll need to re-load all the source files but, as long as you still have them, this takes a bit a time and nothing else.
Good luck with the search.

[Mark Lynch]

Thank you! Eventually, it got it working just fine! I found the (Video.veg.bak) file, made a copy of it, so I’d still have the .bak file, then renamed it (Video.veg), and opened it.
The first try, it loaded up the whole project, but as it was building the peaks for each video clip (about 50 of them), it popped up an error saying “An error occurred.” and something about an “extension”. But I tried opening it again and there were no problems.
The video seems a bit less crisp than before, but that could just be my eyes, haha.

Thank you so much! You saved me weeks of work!

-MJL

[Mike Kujbida]

Thanks for letting me know the outcome.
I’m very glad to hear that it worked for you!!

[David Fresia]

God bless you!
THis so worked. The best work of my life is now recovered right were I left off.
I have tears of joy on my cheeks.
THank you 1000xs!

[Mike Kujbida]

David, I’m really glad to hear that.
Remember to make back-ups of your veg files as you go along.
I got into the habit years ago of saving veg files in increments as I went along.
For example, myvideo-1.veg, myvideo-2.veg, myvideo-3.veg, etc.
That way, I could go back to previous versions very easily.
Periodically copy them to another folder too for safekeeping.

[Cecilia Langlois]

Hi! Helppppppppppp!

I just now accidentally deleted my wav files from my project (command delete from project and remove files). The project is still there but the wav files are gone!

Please, how can i recover them????

Thanks!

[Mike Kujbida]

“Command delete” must be a Mac term.
If that means delete from project, then all you need to do is reload it from wherever it came from.
If that means permanently delete a file from your hard drive, then you’ll need to find a deleted files recovery program to see if you can find and recover it.

[Cecilia Langlois]

Thanks. I accidentally deleted the WAV files from the hard drive themselves. I did try to recover the files with Pandora Recovery, undeleter, and Recuva—-they were only able to recover two files. 🙁

No it’s not a MAC. Sorry I shouldn’t have included the word “command.” I just meant that was what the command was in Sony Vegas.

Oh, dang! Maybe a system restore would get the files back for me?

[Mike Kujbida]

[Cecilia Langlois] “Oh, dang! Maybe a system restore would get the files back for me?”

You’re welcome to try but my guess is no.
Do you have the files backed up somewhere else?
Can you get another copy of them easily?
Consider this a valuable lesson to never ever permanently delete any files until you’re done with the project – and a few years have passed, just in case.
External hard drives are very cheap these days so back up every project asset, just in case.

[Cecilia Langlois]

No, files are not backed up. I deleted them from Sony Vegas. I was transferring files from one project to another because I wanted to keep the setting of the first project for the second project. So I did a SAVE AS from project 1 to project 2. So of course, the WAV files from project 1 were still there. So I decided to delete the wav files from that project to make a clean start and import files from project 3 onto there (project 2). My bad.

Anyway, I fully accept that it’s all gone. I just have to repeat everything. Sigh.

But thanks for the conversation and the tips.