Production · concert recording cards and drives
concert recording: repair an incomplete ingest workflow
How do I investigate an incomplete ingest from the concert recording?
Short answer
Not by copying the whole show again: compare the untouched cards, per camera and per audio recorder, with the setlist and your production log. Missing song segments often point to an interrupted copy of a large chapter file, an import filter or duplicate names. Only files absent from the card itself need a read-only scan.
The situation
The destination contains only part of the material from the concert recording.
Part of the show reached the edit drive and part did not. With several cameras and a multitrack recorder running through the same set, the fastest route is a comparison per source against the setlist rather than a fresh transfer of everything.
01 / Diagnose
Work out what actually disappeared
Concert files are large: a continuous set produces chapter files at the maximum size the card allows, and the multitrack recording grows by the minute. Transfers of such files are the ones that time out, fill the destination or get cancelled during load-out. Import filters and repeated camera file names account for the rest of the gaps.
A copy interruption, filter, duplicate name or delete-after-import action can leave gaps. For concert recording, this matters because the concert recording combines several sources, takes and handoff steps that must be reconciled as a set
Check the last known path, trash and backups without writing to the original device.
02 / Protect the source
Preserve the best recovery chance
- 1
Keep every card from the show unformatted and out of the cameras until the comparison against the destination is done.
- 2
Compare card by card and recorder by recorder against the setlist and the production log, by file name and byte size.
- 3
Copy the missing files again from the card, checking that the destination has space for the large chapter files.
- 4
Where a file is gone from the card as well, scan that card read-only and export to the edit drive.
Do not start a fresh transfer of the whole show over the partial folder, and do not clear cards for tomorrow's gig while the comparison is open. A repeated copy hides which files were missing and can overwrite the incomplete versions you still need as a reference.
03 / Choose the method
Match the tool to the source
For stable, readable exFAT, NTFS and FAT16/FAT32 or uncompressed IMG, DD, RAW and BIN images.
Unconfirmed exports are marked .UNVERIFIED.
Files still on a card need copying, not recovery. A scan applies to deleted material on readable exFAT, NTFS or FAT16/FAT32 media and cannot mend a chapter file that was only half written; File Recovery Hero reads the source without changing it.
04 / Verify
Check the recovered content, not just its name
The ingest is complete when every camera position and the recorder show the same files and byte sizes as their cards, and when the setlist has no missing song. Play the end of the last chapter of each set; cancelled transfers break off exactly there.
Keep the source until two verified copies exist. One working preview is not enough.
Sources and technical references
FAQ
Questions about this recovery case
Can concert recording cards and drives be recovered in this situation?+
Part of the show reached the edit drive and part did not. With several cameras and a multitrack recorder running through the same set, the fastest route is a comparison per source against the setlist rather than a fresh transfer of everything. The result still depends on what remains readable on the source.
What should I avoid before scanning?+
Do not start a fresh transfer of the whole show over the partial folder, and do not clear cards for tomorrow's gig while the comparison is open.
Does scanning write to my memory card?+
Your memory card is only read. Nothing is saved to it.
How do I know whether the result is complete?+
The ingest is complete when every camera position and the recorder show the same files and byte sizes as their cards, and when the setlist has no missing song.