catastrophic failure!! BMCC-MFT/Sandisk

Hi Guys

Hope this will not happen to any one.

Got BMCC MFT last week along with other lens and listed sandisk 240GB extreme.

After reading the forum on corrupted SSD data issues, I made sure I formatted the SSD properly using MAC and tested its recording and properly readable before starting the shoot.

On the set we were shooting a scene in 2.5K RAW and when almost after 2 hours, may be because the disk is full, The red REC text started blinking, and then it stayed RED as if its recording. It stayed like that for long time until I powered down the camera.

Once I started the CAM again it showed me no SSD.

Because we were recording for long time, and being first time user of this BMCC MFT, I assumed that this is the behavior of this camera when disk is full. It dint even allowed me to play the clips. So we packed and left the set as we almost covered all he shoot for the day.

When I reached home and connected the disk to the Win 7 system, I could able to see the drive letter but when I clicked it, It gave the message format the drive before using. Then after cancelling the message box, I see "Cyclic Redundancy Check error"

Then I tried in the mac mac and immediately mac gave the message disk is not usable and gave option to only Eject the disk

THAT'S IT AND I AM NOT ABLE TO ACCESS THE FILES THAT WE SHOOT FOR THE DAY. DONT KNOW WHOM TO BLAME.... BMCC OR THE SSD

In any case if this happens it will be a huge loss for any production company.

Please let me know how to proceed. I have already tried to retrieved data using some HDD recovery software but in vain.

Anyone please let me know if you came across this situation and found a solution.

OR should I just return the BMCC MFT and SSD and go into 5D3 and ML.

Please Help!!!!!!

might help:

http://www.wikihow.com/Fix-a-Cyclic-Red ... heck-Error

if you have the time i recommend to check out this tool...http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
it saved me once a lot of trouble.

Remember, you must avoid writing anything on the filesystem that was holding the data. If you do, deleted files may be overwritten by new ones.

so dont just use a software or freeware you find on the internet...try to use testdisk and let me know.

First let me say I feel your pain and in no way say your at fault for the initial problem. But this is the reason major productions have a DIT on-set with double and triple redundancy, because these things do happen.

I've used the Extreme II 240GB (that's not on the list) without issue recording raw. With a sample size of 1, it's hard (read, impossible) to tell what the issue is. If the issue is repeatable with a different SSD or only happens with that one SSD would tell you more. Many productions use the camera on 12 hour days so it can be reliable with a good SSD and proper operating.

Shooting with confidence with this camera involves some steps. Just like on a film set that would check the film gate after a good take to verify the footage would not have hair shadows on it, do a quick playback of the last shot. This will also tell you the total recorded time on the drive (someone mentioned angrily "oh yeah smarty pants, what if your mixing raw and prores?" (real quote). If you're mixing raw and prores in the same production, you're making lack-of-visual-continuity as a production choice? If the situation warrants that, swap SSD's. At less than a dollar a gig, they're cheaper than SD cards)

Bring a DIT, or at least a laptop and drive, and off-load footage before striking set.

I think one problem is this camera's price puts it in the hands of many who have never seen the workflow of a major production and don't know of the many steps taken to avoid problems. Canon has been building cameras for decades and writing firmware for years with millions of dollars available for R&D. Blackmagic is groundbreaking, but we are pioneers if choosing to use this camera. I love the image, yes I want the cried-for features. But in the meantime, I'll be careful on my shoots.

A quick related story. It is widely known that the Beatles recorded their most famous albums on a 4 track recorder (tracks were bounced many times to get more overdubs) What is not widely known is that for much of that time, EMI owned an 8 track Telefunken recorder, but their policy was to test new equipment in the lab for A YEAR before putting it in the studio to make sure it was operating correctly, so no bands could use it. The Beatles got fed up with EMI's factory-like rules and went to Olympic studios to record. Those tracks were near unusable because Olympics' audio monitoring was so pushed in the bass, that actual recorded EQ sounded thin. They compensated for that in later sessions. Lets hear it for factory-like rules and test those SSD's a year before using them!!! lol

Again, yes the goal should be trouble free operation and your footage should NOT just disappear. In the meantime, take steps to mitigate.

Jason

Oh and a side note on SSD lifespan. Much has been touted about the 2 million hour MTBF of SSD's, but Sandisk also states that the drive is only rated for 80TB of writes. With our usage, a busy production could kill a drive in 6 months.

Be careful out there.

Thanks for the reply.... I am really grateful for the advise. As I am a IT guy for years I am trying to recover data using data recovery software and I could able to see the files form the disk now. I will run a full recover to my another external drive and let you all know the result soon.

Fingers crossed for you!

Really - best of luck. We would all love to see a happy ending to this story.

Update!!!!

First of all a huge thanks to the fantastic forum people who spend their valuable time to reply and help others in the forum who need help.

To be precise: I still couldn’t able to recover. (please follow reading as it might save some one from this situation)

I have recovered many HDD's from its worst conditions. But this time either the BMCC MFT camera left the disk in such a corrupted state (or the SSD that was shipped is in such a corrupted state), that it won’t even let me load some of the recovery software that I have used in the past.

I open my ASUS Gamers republic laptop and connected the SSD directly into the additional SATA bay provided in the laptop.

Then, I tried with UFS Explorer. Which in past rescued almost 1.5 TB of data for me when my Zyxel Nas corrupted the HDD. UFS explorer couldn't load if I plug in this SSD. So no hope on that

Then, I tried R-Studio in Windows. The same story, it stays in the initialising splash screen and never loads until I remove this disk.

I have tried open source 'TestDrive' and no luck.

Something sparked me and thought if I do a quick format the corrupted disk, then the recover software should be able to load and scan the disk to recover stuff.

So, Proof of the concept, I took a fresh SSD and shot some clips in BMCC. Then I inserted into laptop and did a quick format. Then loaded the R-studio and it proved that it can recover the clips in the proper folder structure even after formatting the SSD.

Disappointment: the corrupted SSD is in such a state that MAC / Windows couldn’t able to format it.

Moving on to Mac.

So I decided to get a new software 'DiskDrill' for mac. Before purchasing the 'DiskDrill' ($89), I downloaded a free demo version which can only scan and show the potential files but will not allow to recover until we purchase license.

It is great, it scanned and showed the resulting 'dng' files that can be recovered.

BUT, It creates series of folders named 'dng_0_1000' and dumps first 1000 dng images in the name '2400_x_1300_0001' into that folder and then it creates a new folder 'dng_1000_2000' and then dumps another 1000 into the folder.

Though its a pain, something is better than nothing. But as there was no preview option for dng's from the software, I am not sure whether it got the sequence right in the order in which I shoot the videos.

if its in right sequence, as a programmer I can write a small program to load the files based on the metadata and create folders that get the dng sequence of files separated as folders.

If the images are jumbled in random order, then there is no way unless I spend some months to collect and preview those images and sort into the folders for the resolve to understand it right. This is insane. probably its worth shooting again than to spend months in sequencing and separating 240GB of jumbled DNG's.

So I came back to r-Studio in mac, which loads and could able to scan the drive. I have left the drive to scan last night. Today morning when I checked it dint even crossed 1% and checked the remaining time which showed 64years and 4Months !!!!!!!!

Still, had faith on God and left it for scanning and came for the day job. Fingers crossed hope it speeds up once after crossing the bad read bits and scans everything by evening.

following action plan: Call SANDISK customer support and BMCC Support.

I will update soon on any updates.

Thanks

if you have the time i recommend to check out this tool...http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
it saved me once a lot of trouble.

Remember, you must avoid writing anything on the filesystem that was holding the data. If you do, deleted files may be overwritten by new ones.

so dont just use a software or freeware you find on the internet...try to use testdisk and let me know.

Hi Alex

Thanks very much for the reply. I have tried test disk and It couldn't able to recognise the disk.

so the os is recognizing it?`i mean when testdisk failed to see this than maybe the failure is one step earlier.

I have had some success in a similar situation with GetMyDataBack from Runtime Software. You can download a demo of their software their. I don't know if it will jumble the files like your software did, but it would be worth a try. I had an SSD fail that was on the approved list, it just disappeared and had an entire video shoot on it. I could put it in any computer and nothing no hint of a drive being connected on any system. I was sick and the client was starting to ask what was going on. We took the SSD circuit board out of the case and plugged it in and it worked fine. We transferred the data and I tossed the drive in fear it would happen again.

so the os is recognizing it?`i mean when testdisk failed to see this than maybe the failure is one step earlier.

Hi

TestDisk does recognise the SSD and showed in its list, but it couldn't able to understand the filesystem and couldnt recover.

TestDisk does recognise the SSD and showed in its list, but it couldn't able to understand the filesystem and couldnt recover.

ahh ok. have you looked on the list if it is even supported? when it supports the filesystem than this sounds like data is gone.
for my expierences i recommend formatting the drive with "exFat" filestructure in a Programm like "Parted Magic".

TestDisk does recognise the SSD and showed in its list, but it couldn't able to understand the filesystem and couldnt recover.

ahh ok. have you looked on the list if it is even supported? when it supports the filesystem than this sounds like data is gone.
for my expierences i recommend formatting the drive with "exFat" filestructure in a Programm like "Parted Magic".

Ya thats was my next step. but most of the programme I tried refused to format the disk.

Update!!

Using R-Studio last evening when I reached Home, it did some progress in scanning, but very very slow. It scanned only 18MB after 17 Hours and the remaining time reported still 34 Years and 1 month to Finish!!!!

So I though there is no point in leaving it to scan. I stopped the scan an something sparked in my mind. If the SSD's initial data are corrupted and assuming the rest are fine, then there might be a chance to get it recovered if I can start the scan after first 20MB.

R-Studio had an option to scan the disk starting from and ending range. So I started scanning from first 20MB and YES, my guess was right and it scanned almost in the speed of 1GB per minute. and I scanned for 5 minutes and I did saw the DNG files that could be recovered. But again all those files were collectively put into a DNG folder. I am not sure if it will recreate the folder structure once the full scan is over. OR this might be a reason that I am scanning from MAC where I had only trial version.

So, I switched the SSD to my PC. But in PC, the R-Studio will not load when this SSD is pluged in. The workaround for this is first load the R-Studio and then plug in this SSD and click on Scan. This started scanning this morning and left it to scan for the day.

Hope there will be a positive result this evening.
But only if my son(2) fond of switching off the power when the system is running keeps off from the system today.

Will post further update tonight!!

I should start this reply with message : SUCCESS!!!!!!!

I used the Active@ File Recovery to scan and recover the files.
http://www.partition-recovery.com/download.html

until I found this software....

I used R-Studio, which was great in its own means, but it first took a long time to scan as it reported
remaining time as 34Years, 1 Month Remaining @@@@@!!!!?!!?!?!!!......
So I stopped scanning, But noticed that it stuck in first several MB of data, and restarted the scan starting from 20MB till End. First level of success is that I saw the potential files that can be recovered. Then when I try to recover the file into disk, the software will crash instead of saving the file in the disk. I struggled with this happened for almost 3 nights and 2 days.

then last night Active@ Recovery.... bit cheaper than R-Studio, DiskDrill or an other leading recovery software.

After a long search for various recovery trials, I ended up in the Active@ recovery.
Using the same principle which I learned from R-Studio, I started the scan from 20MB and the software scanned the potential recoverable files just in 2 hours of scan.

Then I connected by backup Samsung 240GB SSD and recovered all the files into the drive from the scan results.

The challenge after this is, I lost the actual filename's from the camera, and dumped all 1000nd's of dng's into same folder.

Its still ok, because I opened that in the Adobe bridge and the images are in the sequence in which it was recorded in camera. So I can see the frames in preview and select first till last frame of the particular video and right click and select Move to and create a new folder and dump into that. So its not that tedious as i might only have around 50 video clips in 240GB.

Now the sound. Its not a big concern for me as we already decided to do ADR. But the software does recovered all the wav files into one folder. So its again not that tedious to find the wav file using the dng frame name and the wav file name or just by pick and matching.

I am really happy that almost 3 sleepless nights did gave some returns at last. I will recommend active@ recovery for others in same situation.

Thanks all for the support and prayers!!!!

Congrats on your recovery. For those (like myself) not as adept at recovery as you are, here's another route. Gillware in Madison, WI is a recovery firm. They scan your drive, give you a recovered tree of your data and discuss that with you before charging anything. If they can't recover, you pay nothing. Check it out:

Code: Select all

http://gillware.com/?campaign=googleBranded&gclid=CISp_Yrw1bkCFUmY4AodmgUAJA

Thank you, AnanthPonnuswamy!

I just used your method to successfully recover 240 GB of accidentally-deleted BMCC RAW files from a SanDisk Extreme SSD.

I was working as the cinematographer on a shoot last weekend, and our data manager had to step away for a few minutes, so our director decided to take over the duties briefly and just long enough to promptly trash and delete all the files off of one of our three SSDs before offloading it! He immediately realized what he had done and fired himself from data management duties.

I told him that I could most likely rescue the footage so long as we didn't format the SSD. A week and four programs later –– and after finally finding this forum topic: SUCCESS!

I did exactly as AnanthPonnuswamy suggested and used the reasonably-priced Active@ File Recovery via Parallels (because it's a Windows-only program) and set it to only recover .DNG and .WAV files, which it did cleanly and with ease in about three hours. All other programs that I tried (Data Rescue 3 for Mac, TestDisk/PhotoRec, and Stellar Data Recovery for Mac) would only recognize the DNG files as TIF files (which I know is because DNG is based on the TIF format).

Once recovered, I used Adobe Bridge to view the DNG files. I should note that the recovered file names were not in any coherent order, they were just named with random numbers and they appeared within the recovered folder grossly out of order, but Adobe Bridge easily placed them in chronological order once it was able to analyze all of the files.

Based on the thumbnails, I was able to separate/move the individual clips into their own folders, then do a batch sequence rename using Name Mangler 3. After that, I could play the files within Resolve without any issue. Footage saved!

I'm wondering now, though, if Adobe Bridge would also do the same thing with the recovered TIF files, then you could also do a batch file extension rename from TIF to DNG. Just a thought. Regardless, this method worked perfectly for me.

Thank you, AnanthPonnuswamy!

I just used your method to successfully recover 240 GB of accidentally-deleted BMCC RAW files from a SanDisk Extreme SSD.

I was working as the cinematographer on a shoot last weekend, and our data manager had to step away for a few minutes, so our director decided to take over the duties briefly and just long enough to promptly trash and delete all the files off of one of our three SSDs before offloading it! He immediately realized what he had done and fired himself from data management duties.

I told him that I could most likely rescue the footage so long as we didn't format the SSD. A week and four programs later –– and after finally finding this forum topic: SUCCESS!

I did exactly as AnanthPonnuswamy suggested and used the reasonably-priced Active@ File Recovery via Parallels (because it's a Windows-only program) and set it to only recover .DNG and .WAV files, which it did cleanly and with ease in about three hours. All other programs that I tried (Data Rescue 3 for Mac, TestDisk/PhotoRec, and Stellar Data Recovery for Mac) would only recognize the DNG files as TIF files (which I know is because DNG is based on the TIF format).

Once recovered, I used Adobe Bridge to view the DNG files. I should note that the recovered file names were not in any coherent order, they were just named with random numbers and they appeared within the recovered folder grossly out of order, but Adobe Bridge easily placed them in chronological order once it was able to analyze all of the files.

Based on the thumbnails, I was able to separate/move the individual clips into their own folders, then do a batch sequence rename using Name Mangler 3. After that, I could play the files within Resolve without any issue. Footage saved!

I'm wondering now, though, if Adobe Bridge would also do the same thing with the recovered TIF files, then you could also do a batch file extension rename from TIF to DNG. Just a thought. Regardless, this method worked perfectly for me.

Just read your reply. Happy that it's helping someone. Can't imagine a loss like this after a day of shoot with big budget artist and set.