Saving Projects

[jane-m]

Dear Community,

I've been encountering a problem while saving my projects. Im working on a Mac OSX 10.8.3 with TVPaint 10 (32bits), and trying to save onto a LaCie external harddrive. Since today, any projects I save take forever to save and once they're saved it turns out I can't open them anymore. They're shown as a file, with about the right filesize, but neither doubleclicking nor Loading them inside TVPaint itself can open them. TVpaint just opens with an empty Untitled 1...
I'd really like to know if there's any chance of getting these files opened again or if my work was lost :/

Thank you!
Jane

[slowtiger]

Can you copy them via Finder? Sounds very much like a faulty harddrive.

[jane-m]

Hi Slowtiger!
Yes I can copy them easily. Also: as a safety-measure I render out PNG stills of each frame of a layer once I'm done to later composit them in Aftereffects. These files, too, are sometimes only half-saved (like the top half, or stripes missing in the middle). Do you know a way to check the functionality of a harddrive?

[slowtiger]

On Mac: applications/utilities/disc utility. Half-saved PNGs sound like a directory tree error.
Since its an external drive it also can be a faulty connection, either hardware or driver. Do a google search about the exact model of the drive.

[jane-m]

It's a LaCie d2 Quadra V2
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10476" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Ah, of course, disc utilities... the thing is it all checks out as normal, and I can open everything else, it just didn't tell me that there had been a problem saving so I kept going like a fool and now the file is, I guess, unusable? It might very well be the connection, LaCies have a remarkably bad Firewire port. Very wobbly, but I only ever had problmes of it being disconnected brutally, and not this kind of sneaky half-saving stuff one doesn't notice.

[slowtiger]

Firewire?? OK, that's most likely the culprit.

After 10.5 Apple decided to fuck up their firewire drivers. I thought my old firewire drives were all corrupted (showing no data at all, not able to unmount, causing complete crash). Then I decided to try them on my old mac again, and voila, no harm done, everything there and working fine.

Try to connct to a Mac with 10.5 or 10.4 to rescue what's there, then sell them or trade them for USB drives.

[Fabrice]

Firewire?? OK, that's most likely the culprit.

After 10.5 Apple decided to fuck up their firewire drivers. I thought my old firewire drives were all corrupted (showing no data at all, not able to unmount, causing complete crash). Then I decided to try them on my old mac again, and voila, no harm done, everything there and working fine.

Try to connct to a Mac with 10.5 or 10.4 to rescue what's there, then sell them or trade them for USB drives.

Oh ... Apple

I have the same hard drive at home, and it can also be used with USB and E-Sata.
Did you try with those ports ?

[jane-m]

ARGH! I should have never bought a new Mac (how stupid is it to regret an update??), our school computers don't even have 10.4/5 anymore... I guess that file's a goner, but my new drive has USB 3, which I immediately switched to! So far so good... Thank you very much for your inputs and help

[idragosani]

For best performance, you should use eSata if the drive provides it (and you have an external connector for it). Firewire/ieee1394 is kinda obsolete now...

[Fabrice]

your harddrive can be dismantled (I did it on mine), and then you will just have to purchase a box with sata inside, and USB outside.