R3D File Recovery

User Guide

 

When you first open the R3D File recovery window, the program will automatically search for all attached media, both mounted and unmounted. In the drop down list, it will show you the volume name, type of volume if not mounted, and size of the volume. In general it is best to select the root of the disk you wish to recover from. For example, if you wish to recover from the disk labeled "disk1s2" you should usually select "disk1".

If the program does not show you all the media attached to your computer, make sure that the media is securely attached to your system, that all the connections are properly done, and the device is powered. In most cases, if it can be seen by the computer, even if it cant be mounted, it will be seen by R3D Data Manager.

Here you will select folder to save the R3D files to, once recovered. You can create a new folder here as needed. When choosing a location to save the recovered R3D files to, you must take a couple of things into consideration:

• You cannot save the recovered R3D files to the same disk you are recovering from. This is for 2 very good reasons. First, if you overwrite old data with new data, the old data is not recoverable under any circumstance. So during the recovery process, if you write to the same disk, you may be overwriting files that you want to recover. Secondly, as the program searches the disk it will find more R3D files, and keep copying them, until it has copied the same file over and over.
• You must choose a destination that has enough free space to copy the whole source. This is because during the recovery process it will recover as many files as it finds, which may be the whole disk. To prevent an error during recovery, you must ensure that there is enough space to potentially recover the whole drive.

R3D Data Manager will look out for the above situations and not allow a recovery process to start. It will show the error in the "Recovery Progress" window.

There are two post-recovery options that R3D Data Manager provides:

• "Organize R3D Files" - This option will look at the R3D files and determine when they were shot and other attributes. When enabled this option will sort the R3D files by shot date (as recorded in camera), the create the appropriate RDM and RDC folders, then move the R3D files into that folder. This enables you to easily find the exact file you are looking for, by putting them into a date camera roll and clip context similar to how it was recorded in camera.
• "Create Reference Movies" - This option will go through each of the RDC folders found and re-create the reference movies. These files will link back to the original R3D files and enable you to quickly check the content of the R3D files.

Once the source and destination are selected, the "Recover R3D files" button should be enabled. Click it to start the copy process.

Once the process is started, the program will go through the selected media, byte by byte, and attempt to locate R3D files. Once it finds the start of a file the program will state the name of the file and start copying it. Once successfully copied, the program will identify the file, looking at the file header to identify the date shot and other details. The program will list each file, with the corresponding details. The program also keeps track of how many files it finds, and the total size of those files.

There may be instances when the file cannot be successfully recovered. This may be because the file was partially overwritten, or other external factors. If this is the case, the program will indicate a failed file, and increment the count of failed files.

After the recovery process is done, if the options are enabled, the program will then begin to sort the R3D files by date, re-create the RDM and RDC folders, and move R3D files into the appropriate places. In addition, if enabled, it will recreate the reference movies.

After the recovery process is complete, R3D Data Manager will allow you to save the results as a text, CSV or PDF file. These results will indicate the date the report was generated, list all the files recovered and their recovery status, and if it was successful, details about the R3D files. These reports can be saved for future reference.