Will data recovery keep project files intact?

[zsalv]

My external hard drive fell the other day and has stopped working. I was editing a film on it, and we have backups of all the footage but not of the project file itself. I am most likely going to pay a data recovery company to get the files back, but I've heard of project files being corrupted after being recovered. Is this likely to happen, and is there a solution? I'm worried I'll pay hundreds of dollars for no reason.

[Justin T - Hyper Brew]

Data recovery is always a gamble, unfortunately, regardless I've never heard of Premiere Projects being more susceptible to corruption than any other type of file, so if it's worth the price then I'd give it a shot.

[Michael Grenadier]

is your autosave folder on a separate drive?  If so, that'll probably be ok.  I always recommend keeping the autosave folder on a different drive from your project.  I keep my projects on a folder that's automatically mirrored on dropbox so I've got another layer of protection.  

[zsalv]

Unfortunately I didn't set it to be on another drive, which was clearly a massive mistake.

[MyerPj]

Did you try any of the recovery software, they work well.

Take out the current / bad HD right away. Put in a new drive and put Windows on it get it up and running. In the meantime, get a USB hard drive connector / tray.

Once you have that, you can plug in the problem drive and try the recovery software, you may find your file.

[Halla5FA0]

I was in exactly the same situation, but I did not turn to specialists for help. I used the Uneraser program, which recovers damaged and deleted files. I ran a scan, then found all the types of files I needed, manually checked them and found the file for the project itself. You should understand that you will have to sort through the recovered files manually.

[Justin T - Hyper Brew]

Yes also it's important to look for lost files immediately before they are overwritten by new data.

[Michael Grenadier]

I had a card get corrupted and managed to recover the mxf files but they were not playable.  I found someone in Spain if I remember correctly who was able to fix that problem.  I sent a single mxf file and they wrote a program that would fix all the files.  I think it cost about $100...  If your recovered files are not playing, post back and I'll see if I can retreive some of the details.