PLEASE HELP - imovie and deleted files

Hi there,

I really need help. I have a macbook running OSX 10.6.5. I uploaded a bunch of HD videos from my flip camera. I opened imovie 09 and imported (moved not copied) the HD videos to imovie 09. Imovie 09 was giving me a lot of problems (not saving etc.) and so I just deleted the whole application (put it in the trash) and emptied the trash.

No problem re imovie 09 - i got a new version of imovie but when I tried to import my HD videos....I couldn't find them anymore! So I thought they were deleted and in the emptied trash. I got a data recovery program - data rescue and have spent the past two days sifting through all the files that were scanned with the data recovery program. I found a couple of the videos but not all...and now they are in a weird quicktime version - way lower quality and no longer mp4s. I don't even know where to look to find them...or even if this is possible to recover videos that were deleted within an application??

PLEASE PLEASE HELP!! Feeling really desperate here...

many many thanks in advance.

No OS X application stores the data in the application, or it shouldn't. iMovie never has.

Your pre-edited footage will be in Home > Movies > iMovie Events > <Name of Event>

Those thumbnail files are recovered deleted footage.

Thank you, Kaveman. I'm not very computer savvy...so I have a follow up question.

ARe you familiar with Data Rescue? Is that directory you gave me the way to find it in Data Rescue? Or are you saying that just because I uninstalled Imovie, this will still be in my regular hard-drive?

Yes, if you didn't go and delete this Folder it should still be there. I have mine on an external and even move it from Mac to Mac, so the Movie Library is not attached to the Application.

I don't have that directory - I can go home>movies>imovie projects

And then it says "My first project" and "test project" - no movie files!

Arggghhh! I also don't understand how imovie can just take my movie files and delete them. Help!

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iMovie Events

do you have a folder named.

Also - I have no idea where to find this folder in Data Rescue recovered files - there are SOOO many files.
There are three drives which I dont understand anyway - CBR, Orphans Folder and ST9250287 Media. I don't even know how to start wading through these folders. I just don't know where it would have gone. All i did was zap imovie 09 and then I downloaded the new version imovie 2011. When I launched imovie 2011 and tried to import my movie files..that's when I realized they weren't there anymore.

named what?

"iMovie Events"

Sorry can't help with Data Rescue, there are just SOOOO many files and you really have to know the system to even begin sorting through them. Our workshop charges $300 just to launch that software.

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