Production · documentary production cards and drives
documentary production: recover after a failed drive handoff
What should I do when files disappear during the documentary production handoff?
Short answer
First freeze every card and drive involved and stop all further copying. Then rebuild the chain: who moved which shoot day to which drive, and when. A move deletes the source once the copy seems finished, so an interrupted handoff can leave files on neither side. Only after checking every destination scan the original cards read-only.
The situation
Media was handed to another editor or drive and is now missing from both expected locations.
Shoot days handed to an editor and missing on both sides point at an interrupted move. Because the material was recorded over weeks, the first job is to establish which days actually left which drive, when, and whether anyone confirmed the copy.
01 / Diagnose
Work out what actually disappeared
Documentary handoffs are rarely a single event. Days go out in batches, over months, sometimes to more than one editor, occasionally by courier drive. A move operation deletes each source file once its copy appears written, so a cancelled batch can leave a whole shoot day on neither the production drive nor the editing drive.
Move operations, duplicate filenames and destination assumptions can fail between teams. For documentary production, this matters because the documentary production 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
Stop every transfer in the project and unmount the drives involved, so no background sync writes to them while you investigate.
- 2
Rebuild the chain in writing: which shoot day went to which drive, by whom, with which tool, and on what date.
- 3
Search every drive and every remaining card for the file names of that shoot day before considering the material deleted.
- 4
Scan the drive that held those days last read-only, and export what it finds to a drive not involved in the handoff.
Do not send the batch again to the same drive while the earlier files are still missing, and do not let anyone tidy up or empty the trash there. Both actions overwrite the blocks where a cancelled move left the original files behind.
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.
Scanning covers exFAT, NTFS and FAT16/FAT32 drives plus uncompressed IMG, DD, RAW or BIN images; APFS, HFS+ and ext4 drives are not readable. On an SSD used for editing, TRIM often erases released blocks immediately, so deleted days may be unrecoverable.
04 / Verify
Check the recovered content, not just its name
Check each shoot day separately against the production log: clip count, byte sizes, and the audio tree beside the video. Only when a day is complete on the editing drive should it be marked as handed over, and the production copy should stay until then.
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 documentary production cards and drives be recovered in this situation?+
Shoot days handed to an editor and missing on both sides point at an interrupted move. Because the material was recorded over weeks, the first job is to establish which days actually left which drive, when, and whether anyone confirmed the copy. The result still depends on what remains readable on the source.
What should I avoid before scanning?+
Do not send the batch again to the same drive while the earlier files are still missing, and do not let anyone tidy up or empty the trash there.
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?+
Check each shoot day separately against the production log: clip count, byte sizes, and the audio tree beside the video.