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Activity Forums DaVinci Resolve Laptop Motherboard fried – All data in M.2 SSD How to retrieve my projects

  • Laptop Motherboard fried – All data in M.2 SSD How to retrieve my projects

    Posted by Anshul Agrawal on October 2, 2019 at 6:46 pm

    Hi Guys,

    This is my first ever post on creativecow. Let’s hope I get some help.

    Three days ago my Acer Predator helios 300 decided not to boot up and after some simple tests, I realized the motherboard is the problem.
    Now, I have been color grading for a while and currently was grading a music video and an independent feature film on this laptop.
    My DaVinci studio was licensed and all was fine till it was not.
    I had a back up of my database almost fifteen days ago and I have that backup on my Local drive.

    As is the situations with companies following market rules set by Apple, my motherboard which might just need a few dollor worth of replacement IC, might never actually see the light. I am in India and we will not find the IC till my luck is multiplied by 10000. The motherboard would cost same as the new Laptop as it would come with CPU and GPU which I already have in perfect condition.

    I can only retrieve my M.2 SSD and RAM sticks

    Problem is, my most important thing is my project files and licensed Davinci resolve.
    Its all sitting neatly in my m.2 drive

    How do I retrieve these?

    I am now building a core PC machine for pursuing serious work on resolve. But my existing projects are serious too. I need to get my last saved files. And the backup of fifteen days ago is not good in that sense. A lot of work has gone in.

    I know you guys will say save a backup every day. But the case is I didn’t and was really working hard on the feature in the last fifteen days.

    Help me, please show me a way.

    What if I build a new pc machine and put this m.2 as a local drive apart from the new os drive?
    I can still put my license on a second machine as I never did till now.
    All my work was in the latest 16.3 beta
    Can I import my projects back into resolve. They must be somewhere on the m.2 drive from my laptop.

    Please help

    Michael Gissing replied 6 years, 11 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • Michael Gissing

    October 2, 2019 at 10:42 pm

    [Anshul Agrawal} “What if I build a new pc machine and put this m.2 as a local drive apart from the new os drive?
    I can still put my license on a second machine as I never did till now.”

    Yes that is what I would try under your circumstances. The database is usually on your system drive unless you changed the default location. This file can be copied and used to overwrite the new Resolve install. You shouldn’t need to open the version of Resolve you have on the M2, just copy the database.

    Backing up the whole database each day can get messy as it gets bigger. My practice is to backup my individual .drp project files regularly as I work on them and the whole database monthly. The bonus to doing the regular project backup is that I rename it, adding the date or other details so I can restore it along side the current version of the project if I find I have need to reference the earlier version.

    My backups go to a Raided NAS and a separate internal HD.

  • Anshul Agrawal

    October 4, 2019 at 4:14 pm

    Recovered all Projects and data.

    I built a new Editing / Coloring machine and installed os on a new SSD. Then after booting up and update and everything, I installed my laptop m.2 SSD in the machine and tried to boot with the OS from my laptop. It luckily worked and windows started. I installed all the new drivers.

    My DaVinci resolve from this OS also started and I was able to create a backup of all my projects on a local drive. I was also able to deactivate my Davinci Resolve.

    I then booted to my new OS drive and installed Davinci with my activation code and then used the Database backup to get all projects back.

    I will Backup Database every day from now onwards.

    Anshul Agrawal DOP / Colorist

    My Rig –
    AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
    16 GB 3200 RAM
    ZOTAC 2070 Amp Extreme Core
    MSI X570 Gaming Edge motherboard
    Samsung Pro SSD 500GB

  • Michael Gissing

    October 7, 2019 at 6:27 am

    Nice outcome. Thanks for sharing as it will help others

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