[Braden Curtis]

Jerry,

Thanks for the recommendations. I’ll be changing the way I do a few things as a result of this. Thanks for your help.

Regards,
Braden

[Braden Curtis]

Dave,

Great posts – thanks a lot. Might even pick up the book you recommended.

Cheers,
Braden

[Braden Curtis]

Dave,

You said:

“Since you have both a second internal drive and external FW drives, I would recommend that you put your caches, autosave vault, thumbnails, and render files on the second internal drive, leaving the media on your external FW drives.”

Just want to make sure I’m understanding you. You say to put FCP project files on Internal HD1; caches, autosave vault, thumbnails (?), and render files on Internal HD2; and all media on External HD. Am I understanding you correctly?

Braden

[Braden Curtis]

Dave,

This makes perfect sense. Do you have a personal standard of frequency for making project copies? At the end of every day? Every week? Just curious what you think is sufficient.

Also, at what point do you start deleting past versions? And, do you always save your FCP project files in separate folders on separate drives?

Thanks,
Braden

[Braden Curtis]

Sure.

This is my client’s setup:

Dual 2.7 G5
2GB RAM
(2) internal 400GB harddrives
(1) 1TB LaCie Bigger Disk (FW800)
(1) 250GB LaCie (FW800)
FCP Studio

There are multiple projects on the drives. Some projects, like the one I’m having issues with, can span four months, or more. One project is 100GB, another is 280GB…hours and hours of DV25 video, in FCP and DVDSP.

If I end up in a situation where I have to reformat a drive for whatever reason, what’s the best course of action? Should I just get additional drive space to use during the reformat? Or should I have been backing up all along?

As it is, it looks like the kernel panic is being caused by a corrupt FCP project file. So, your suggestion of just copying the project files is the right way to go. I just want to provide the best solution for my client.

Maybe the best question is, what is the best way to prepare for file corruption?

Thanks,
Braden

[Braden Curtis]

Jerry,

Thanks for the quick reply.

So you suggest that backing up media really isn’t necessary. And, simply manually copying the project files is sufficient.

I’m asking because I’ve just had kernel panic problems, and I’m concerned about the prospect of having to reformat a drive. In this situation, would you suggest getting an additional drive to copy the media to before reformatting, instead of doing frequent backups?

Just trying to figure out the safest way to do this…

Thanks,
Braden

[Braden Curtis]

Dave,

You’re summing up the conclusion I’m just coming to, albeit after three days of tech support calls. One thing I want to ask you, though…you say to “Save As…” instead of duplicating the project file from within Finder. When I was checking the Cow archives for related posts, one poster had said exactly the opposite. I have no reason to believe you or he is more right – just curious what your reasoning is.

Also, there seems to be a consensus that project files shouldn’t be kept on the external drive. That is one change I will be making for sure.

Thanks for the good post.
Braden

[Braden Curtis]

Yeah, Joni, I hope it doesn’t get to that point!

I have re-installed the OS. I’ve run DiskWarrior on the internal drives and the LaCie. Apple says the problem is the LaCie. LaCie says the project file itself is most likely corrupt and the source of the problem.

I’ve copied the entire folder to my internal HD and tried to open the project from there, and still get the kernel panic. I’ve connected the LaCie to a PowerBook and not gotten a kernel panic, but the project file still causes FCP to automatically quit.

This leads me back to a Final Cut or G5 issue. I just can’t get the hardware and FCP folks at Apple to agree.

Thanks,
Braden

[Braden Curtis]

I’m beginning to wonder what issues I’m having. I just started an export to a Quicktime Reference movie, and the time to completion just kept rising – a QT ref. file should be nearly instant.

Any ideas?

Thanks
Braden Curtis
Full Measure Media, Inc.

[Braden Curtis]

Does the timeline need to be rendered first?

Thanks
Braden Curtis
Full Measure Media, Inc.