Final cut express hd won't open

Question

i was trying to render some video while monitoring the footage through my dv cam and then on to a tv screen. as has happened before, the camera cut out and the warning for removing hardware came up. the ext hard drive had also gone off and the video clips were now offline.
after quitting the application, i tried to reopen final cut. it seemed to be loading, but vanished at the point where the canvas, browser and timeline etc appear, and before it could read the project. even the little icon in the tool tray disappears at this point.
anyone have any idea why this is? i have tried opening this project and others from the autosave files and i'm getting the same result.
any help would be gratefully received.
thanks in advance,
mark

Answer 1

a friend has since helped me fix this. the answer is as follows for anyone else who needs it:
just go to your users Library folder and look in the Preferences folder within.
you need to trash 4 files:
com.apple.FinalCutPro.plist
then inside another subfolder called "Final Cut Pro User Data"
Final Cut Pro 5.0 Prefs
Final Cut Pro 5.0 Obj Cache
Final Cut Pro 5.0 Prof Cache
that should do the trick.
best all,
mark