antp.be forum

Dear community,

on december 14, i opened my AMC (same and only file as always) as usual to add some movie informations, when i noticed, that there are only 1100 of about 1400 movies left. The last time i used it, was a few days ago and everything worked properly. Since i also added notes etc., it's a real loss, which i can't just work up. I noted that the whole catalogue only lists movies that were added before May 2012.

I began the known row of recovery things: Tried many softwares to undelete files, search tools, made hd-checks etc. The only thing i could "reconstruct" was a backup file from December, 3 "TB Cinema.bak", but unfortunately it consists of 0 kb and has no content. At least it proves, that there was the proper amc-file on my hd... (I'd be really curious how this user worked it out to reconstruct the whole catalogue with Stellar recovery: viewtopic.php?t=4531&highlight=deleted)

Another very strange thing: I can't open my catalogs folder anymore in the software directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Ant Movie Catalog. There is a failure message, that the directory is not available. Months ago is used it as a Dropbox-folder, but then deleted dropbox. But as mentioned, everything worked fine till mid-december. From the history i can see, that amc also started from this normal "catalogs"-folder.

The whole thing is so very strange, because i often added screenshots to AMC and they must be somewhere, but i can't find any of the newer covers... Is there a log file (AMCReport?).

Okay, my questions: Are there any possibilities, advices left to find that catalogue file? / Did someone make good experiences with a recovery software to reconstruct the Catalogs-folder?

I'd be grateful for any help!

Some informations:
OS: Windows 7
Language: de (german)
doc_title: TB Cinema.amc


edit:
Sorry, i see this must be moved to AMC instead of the renamer forum.

Where was your catalog stored?
in one of the "Program Files" subfolder? e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Ant Movie Catalog
If so, check in C:\Users\<your name>\AppData\Local\Virtual Store\Program Files (x86)\Ant Movie Catalog
There might have been a change in UAC settings or folder permissions.
By default programs can't write in Program Files subfolders: if they try to do so, Windows redirects them to the Virtual Store subfolders.
But when re-reading the file, if the access settings change (by disabling UAC or changing permissions on the folder), that redirection not be done and so you fall back to the real file in the Program Files subfolder, not the one from the Virtual Store.
Also search if you find a recent .bak file either in the Virtual Store or directly in Program Files: that one can be renamed with a .amc extension.
When saving, the current catalog is renamed from .amc to .bak and a new .amc is created.

AMCReport is just the tool used for the design of print reports.

antp wrote:Where was your catalog stored?

Here:
C:\Users\X\Documents\Google Drive\X\Catalogs

At the time i copied the full "catalogs"-folder to Google Drive. Still AMC shows, that once it started a file from:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Ant Movie Catalog\Catalogs\TB Cinema.amc

Honestly, i'm not sure anymore, which one of the two is the "right" one.

In the directory you mention is only a "desktop.ini" file...
C:\Users\x\AppData\Local\VirtualStore

As for the UAC: I have always full administrator rights.

I can't really help more if you do not find the latest catalog in any of these folders
If you do not know which one is the right one, you should find that by opening each of them, no?
Also, as I suggested, check the .bak files.

Believe it or not, but in the first one, there is only the amc-file from May (and also the .bak file shows after renaming the same old catalogue).

The second folder can't even be entered, because it's a link to "unexisting" directory. No idea what happened there...

Many thanks anyway for your fast answers!!!

It is just now that I see that the topic is in the wrong section (Ant Renamer instead of Ant Movie Catalog), I'll move it