3dsmax error....need help!!!! fast!!!

[joe_de_banana]

hi,

today i modelled a scene in 3dsmax 6.0 and saved every hour.
i closed max und restarted the computer. but when i tried to load the files an error message with am red cross poped up. i tried to load the files several times but no chance the files cannot be opend. so i went to a friend and opened the files there on his computer. and what a surprise it did NOT work, they are corrupted or something else. i don´t know what to do, but i need those files. is there a way to fix them.

please help me

[trixian]

Most likely no, though you might be able to merge them into an empty scene.
Just curious, why did you choose to post in the vray forum?
Personally my first choice would be the discreet 3dsmax board

[RErender]

Hi Joe,

not really this forums topic but there is a chance that you can save the objects by merging them into another file, first check the files size if it is 28k or something like that then I'm sorry but you are out of luck, also what is memory doing when you try to open it it is it climbing to 1.8 gigs? if so then using the 3GB switch might get you enough headroom to open it. Also have you checked 3dsmax6\autoback? there may be previous versions saved there if autoback is turned on or at least a copy of the file before your last save.

[nlo]

i had this kind of problem when max 5 crashed during saving...

the file was lost forever... i always try to save incremental...

[trixian]

Well this seems to be a problem more likely linked to max6, as I my self have experienced the exact same problem. In production, I nearly always save incrementally, and had done so for a whole day (working day) when this happened. It seems max6 is able to keep a corrupted file in memory without crashing, because all my files (20 odd or so) were corrupted, except for the first one. I have never experienced this behaviour with any of the prior versions of max (they only corrupted files if they crashed while saving). The files sizes varied alot as well. Basically there is nothing you can do than start all over again and tell your self that this sucks

[joe_de_banana]

oh man ....
ok thanx for your help....

(one day lost....arrrrrggghhhghg!!!)

[RErender]

Did you even check for maxback.bak or a autoback?

[trixian]

If you are asking me, then yes. Every file outputed from that scene was corrupted, including auto-backups, maxback.bak and maxhold.bak.
If you're asking Mr. Banana, I haven't the foggiest.

[lordshaitan]

Check the autobac files on your system.

Really w/ max the only reason you need to save often is not because of something getting corrupt, its so that if you get ahead of yourself and realize plan A didn’t work, you don’t have to scrap a model and go back. You can say go back to the model before you collapsed a stack. I suggest making max autobac have 5-10 files, and save in increments of 5-10 minutes.

Now hopefully you didn’t leave max open w/ the new file or a blank file to long, because this will save in autobac.

Quite frankly Discreet needs to get their stuff together and stop worrying about a version every year and make their software STABLE. I’ve never had these kinds of problems with Maya.

[RErender]

Yes Christian, I was asking Joe, I'd hate for him to do a days of work over again if the answer is sitting in the autoback folder, btw if you notice we replied at the same time, I was not second guessing your answer