FCP Backup Project Questions

Question

Hi Everyone,
Say I had several questions and was hoping another FCP user could answer them for me.
I recently had a hard drive fail that housed all of the captured video for a project that was complete, but had not yet been exported out. A real bummer.
I did not worry about it too much since it was only the captured video and audio and thought all I needed to do was just go in, select the offline files and recapture the footage. Boy was I wrong.
This had been my backup philosophy thus far, backup my project files, graphics, music, etc etc and dump all of the captured video and audio on the project, since I had the original tapes. If I needed to go back into the project I could just recapture. I developed this from other users suggestions from here.
Well on this project, when the hard drive crashed, since I had all the same files I would normally backup I assumed it would be the same deal. I have never had to go back to a backup project so I had not tested this before.
When I attempt to batch capture the original footage, some captures fine, while others come up prompting me to change a file name because one already exists and even on stuff that will recapture, it comes up saying it cannot be reconnected because the capture footage does not match. Sigh. I am puzzled by these messages since, the settings for the recapture are the same, and the file cannot exist since ALL the footage is gone.
So what I am faced with now is confusion over what is a good, solid way to backup ones projects. Am I doing something wrong when setting projects up that cause them to be such a headache to recover? Many of the projects I do are using a 24p Adavanced setting. Sometimes I remove the advanced pulldown when capturing, sometimes after I have captured. My setups, for the most part, are normally the same.
Can I start a dialogue with some fellow editors out there who have some experience here? I am real curious to know what works for you and any thoughts on what could be causing my current woes.
Thanks so much!

Answer 1

Ok, well here is where I am at:
I performed the XML export as suggested, but ran into the same issues. Let me give a more detailed description of the issues.
After the hard drive crashed and I lost all my captured video and audio, I replaced the drive and named it the same as the previous one.
So when I went back into my project, the normal message pops up that items are offline, etc. I hit continue past this and tried to batch capture the footage again. On several clips FCP (version 5.0.4) would come back reporting that there was a Duplicate Item Name and try to force me to rename it or skip (Why does it not give an option to overwrite??). Now in the bin there is only 1 clip with the name, so I am assuming it is picking up on something else. On other clips, it does not prompt this, but when I have finished recapturing (mind you I have left the box checked to use the logged settings) it comes back to report that the clip cannot be reconnected because the beginning or end times are different, etc, etc.
So per the great suggestions on here I exported (with the Source showing in browser) the whole thing to XML and then imported it into a new project. Same problems as before. So I looked through the Source in the browser and noticed some stated they were offline, while others stated they were on the old crashed drive. So I set them all to be offline and told it to delete the files from the hard drive.
Again I have tried to recapture to no avail.
I am now attempting to blow out the hard drive and wipe it clean, then rename it to see if I can get FCP to recapture the darn footage.
Does anyone else have any suggestions??
And furthermore, what is the best method to backing up a project?? Should I go through and take all the clips offline in FCP, deleting the footage and then as I have been doing, save the project file, graphics, etc, etc. Basically, how do I get FCP to recapture stuff if I ever have such a problem or need to go back into a backed up project again??
Thanks ALL!