Harddisk lost power, now all projects in FCP gone

I'm pretty bummed right now because I may have lost months of work. I've been working on a heavy FCP session with over 100 projects using hundreds of video files including editing, automation etc.

The FCP library and all the video files are located on an external LaCie 8TB hard disk, which worked fine.
Half an hour ago, I accidentally turned of the power outlet which powers the hard disk. Of course FCP lost it and I closed it in order to launch it again correctly.

Unfortunately, when opening the library (about 700 GB) it won't show any of the projects apart from 1 in the timeline, but the videos are also gone. I also can't relink any files because it doesn't know which ones have been used, because the projects are gone. There isn't anything useful in the backups folder.

The hard disk still contains the library and the videos.

I need to set up everything in FCP again, so that all the edits ect. aren't lost...

Unfortunately for some reason there aren't any recent backups inside the backups folder...

I'm using a Macbook Pro 2013 with the most recent software releases.

Please help! Any advice much appreciated!

EDIT: I have located the .fcpevent files for each project inside the library on the external hard disk. How should I proceed to import/open them to get back to the old state inside FCP?

There are a couple things you can try. Before you do, you might check to see if your backups are located somewhere else (which could explain why you don't see recent backups in the folder you are looking in). By default, the backups are usually found in the users./movies folder, however when you create the library/project you have the option of setting their location. So, maybe the recent backups are on the external LaCie drive or somewhere else.

If problems persist, try the following in this order:
1. Reboot your system and open Disk Utility. Select your external drive and run First Aid on the volume and the top level disk for your external LaCie drive. Then start FCPX and try to open the library.

2. Start FCPX by holding down the OTION & COMMAND keys and when asked, choose to delete preferences. Once FCPX starts, navigate to your external drive and try to open the library.

3. Use Digital Rebellion's Pro Maintenance Tools to attempt to repair the library/projects on your external drive. This works pretty well most of the time.

4. Maybe a last resort, but you can navigate to the library and control-click to "show package contents". Open each event and delete the render files folder. You can do this one at a time and then try to open FCPX each time to see if you've solved the issue, or you can delete the render file folders for all events.

If none of this works, post back with what you did and what the current status is.

Thanks a lot for the help and the suggestions, dgwvideo!

I did try 1. and 2., to no avail.

In the meantime I had Apple telephone support, which, sadly, resulted in having to go back to the latest backup. It seems the library file got corrupted.
The bad thing is, when I moved the library 6 weeks ago, somehow the backup function turned itself off, so that the last backup was from the beginning of February. Which means, that about 2 weeks of full-time work are gone. It sucks, but I've come to accept it and started redoing things. I've certainly learned from that.

I will have a go at 3. and 4., though, and have a look at the maintenance software you've mentioned!

Thanks a again for helping out!

dgwvideo wrote: There are a couple things you can try. Before you do, you might check to see if your backups are located somewhere else (which could explain why you don't see recent backups in the folder you are looking in). By default, the backups are usually found in the users./movies folder, however when you create the library/project you have the option of setting their location. So, maybe the recent backups are on the external LaCie drive or somewhere else.

If problems persist, try the following in this order:
1. Reboot your system and open Disk Utility. Select your external drive and run First Aid on the volume and the top level disk for your external LaCie drive. Then start FCPX and try to open the library.

2. Start FCPX by holding down the OTION & COMMAND keys and when asked, choose to delete preferences. Once FCPX starts, navigate to your external drive and try to open the library.

3. Use Digital Rebellion's Pro Maintenance Tools to attempt to repair the library/projects on your external drive. This works pretty well most of the time.

4. Maybe a last resort, but you can navigate to the library and control-click to "show package contents". Open each event and delete the render files folder. You can do this one at a time and then try to open FCPX each time to see if you've solved the issue, or you can delete the render file folders for all events.

If none of this works, post back with what you did and what the current status is.

Sorry for your loss
Can I just say that the most important thing you can do at this time is to make at least daily back-ups on a separate drive. Use Time Machine or a 3rd party app like Carbon Copy Cloner. While you are at it, make a couple or three backup copies to different drives and maybe a cloud based back-up. You really don't have any protected data without having separate drives and at least 2 back-ups.
If an external drive becomes disconnected while writing data, it can really mess up the directory. Each time you make any changes, the OS or drive needs to build a new database to log where the files are stored on disk. If you interrupt the database write, then it can cause a loss of the "map" and files are lost. One of the benefits of the new Apple File System APFS is that it does not erase or alter the existing database as it writes new info, so you should be always able to go back to the last write. If your computer is flash based and you are on High Sierra, then most likely your system is now APFS. Unfortunately external drives are not likely to be APFS and also Fusion Drives.
Back it up!

Best of Luck, Greg