Restoring my photos and metadata after hard drive format. yep, I'm THAT guy

Hi guys,
Unfortunately my 17,000 photo aperture library (master files stored externally to the aperture library - ie referenced) was accidently deleted (long story) in a drive consolidating effort around my house.
The good news is that I was able to recover the images using a file recovery program.
My problem is that the files once recovered have a new filename different from the original (ie instead of IMG_4345 it is J1928731-1323). The metadata for the photo from EXIF is still present and I am able to sort the photos based on photo date time group once re-imported into aperture. Since the filename is not the same as the original, I am unable to reconnect the files to restore the individual metadata changes to each image made in aperture.
I have been able to 'mirror' my original library ie, for each project there are the correct order and number of images in the recovered project folders.
My question is:
1. Is there a way to force a file re-connect with an image with a different filename?
2. Failing Q1, is there a way to select a group of images all with different metadata and paste it to another group of images where the number of images between the two groups is equal? Lift & stamping each individual photo is VERY painful...
Any help would be fantastic
Message was edited by: matt_hornet to ellaborate the problem

matt_hornet wrote:
Unfortunately my 17,000 photo aperture library (master files stored externally to the aperture library - ie referenced) was accidently deleted (long story) in a drive consolidating effort around my house.
Ouch. You have my sympathies!
My question is:
1. Is there a way to force a file re-connect with an image with a different filename?
As far as I remember, File>Manage Referenced Files... will do this if you Alt/Option-click the Reconnect Now button. It's still going to be a mammoth task, but faster than copying all the metadata to new imports...
Ian

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cheechy! wrote:
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