Re-organize "lost" photos in Aperture

[zchris]

Hi everyone,
my about 75 000 pictures disappeared on my external hard drive but by Data Rescue 3 they were back again. I used Aperture to organize my pictures and they were organized into projects. Unfortunately the name of the files has been changed by Data Rescue 3 by using the picture size like this one J2808x1872-78721.jpg and the original name / the original date of the picture lost.
Unfortunately I can not sort again the pictures based on the name/date and I could not find any helpful information in the exif data either. Did you face such a problem before? Any suggestions how I could sort the files in order to get back the former project structure?
Now I can't find any files I am looking for because I should check all the files one by one.
Many thanks for your support in advance!

 

[flynz4]

Hi everyone,
my about 75 000 pictures disappeared on my external hard drive but by Data Rescue 3 they were back again. I used Aperture to organize my pictures and they were organized into projects. Unfortunately the name of the files has been changed by Data Rescue 3 by using the picture size like this one J2808x1872-78721.jpg and the original name / the original date of the picture lost.
Unfortunately I can not sort again the pictures based on the name/date and I could not find any helpful information in the exif data either. Did you face such a problem before? Any suggestions how I could sort the files in order to get back the former project structure?
Now I can't find any files I am looking for because I should check all the files one by one.
Many thanks for your support in advance!

This sounds like a horrible situation to be in... but better than if if were not able to recover your photos at all. I suppose the reason you used Data Rescue 3 is because you did not have a backup.

The only thing that I can think of is a very manual process of recreating your organization.

Do you still have your Aperture Library on your computer... with previews... and now all of your originals are disconnected? If so, then I would start by making a new library from scratch, and continue to use your old library for reference. If you happen to have a second computer, then I would keep the reference library there, so that you could see both libraries side by side.

Then... I would import all 75,000 photos into the new library, and start the VERY manual process of organizing. Personally, I would start by creating very coarse projects which are "buckets" of photos based on how you organize your data. For example... if you organize by a timeline... maybe by "approximate decade". Then go into each bucket and subdivide into more appropriate projects. This is where the reference library with disconnected originals can help you with the finer organization. With 75,000 photos... I cannot imagine this being less than a multi-year part time project.

Sorry that this sounds so horrible. Maybe someone has a better plan than I can think of. I am glad that you were able to rescue your photos. Let this be a lesson to anyone who does not have a robust backup system.

/Jim

 

[zchris]

Unfortunately I do not have the old library with the projects any more, it disappeared. But thanks for your hints anyway!
Your last sentence is more than true, but I learned the lesson for ever surely.
So let's start with the work! ;-)

 

[flynz4]

Unfortunately I do not have the old library with the projects any more, it disappeared. But thanks for your hints anyway!
Your last sentence is more than true, but I learned the lesson for ever surely.
So let's start with the work! ;-)

Sorry to hear that... but I am still glad for you that your rescued all (or most) of your images.

For reference... my Aperture library is a bit over 60,000 photos, and I have 1213 projects. If your project granularity is on the same order as mine... that is a lot of organization work to perform from a "heap" of photos. Starting with coarse granularity, and refining it over time is the only feasible method I can think of.

/Jim

 

[MCAsan]

How about restoring the Aperture library from Aperture Vault backups or Time Machine backups?

 

[flynz4]

How about restoring the Aperture library from Aperture Vault backups or Time Machine backups?

As the OP stated... he had no backups. The OP is incredibly lucky that the images themselves were recoverable.

/Jim

 

[MCAsan]

Sorry I missed any explicit statements by OP that Aperture Vault or Time Machine backups were not available.

I would think that implementing both Aperture Vault backups and complete file system backups via Time Machine should be a more important part of this project that sorting the recovered image files. Next time there is a disk failure, Data Rescue 3 may not be able to recover the files.

The OP is incredibly lucky that the images themselves were recoverable.

Totally agreed!

 

[Razeus]

A man with 75k photos and no backup is a man that wants to lose his photos.

Please get an external hard drive and backup weekly.

I can't believe this still goes on in this day and age.

 

[zchris]

A man with 75k photos and no backup is a man that wants to lose his photos.

Please get an external hard drive and backup weekly.

I can't believe this still goes on in this day and age.

You are completely right of course! It was more than negligence, I was simply silly.
In the meantime I bought an extra external hard drive for backups and I make a backup on every second day.
Unfortunately it does not help me a lot with my actual problem...