How do I restore my old projects.

My Windows 11 installation became unbootable after the last update so I wound up getting a new system drive and reinstalling windows but I can't figure out how to get my old DaVinci resolve projects into the new installation can someone please help me?

I upgraded my system drive at the time and still have my old SSD accessible through USB with all files on it.

I started with resolve 16 couple years ago and have upgraded a few times so the latest non beta version.

I tried copying the old files from the appdata directory but that didn't seem to work. The folder names are a little different from what I've seen on instructions online. I've tried to import what I thought was my old directory but nothing went coming in.

From what I remember I didn't have it stored in postgresql but I tried connecting the new installation to my restored database and there was nothing there either.

I had a lot of templates and power glades that I will use that it really need to get back but nothing I'm doing seems to work.

Can one assume you were using the default library (aka "database")? In any event, use Windows to search the old system disk for "project.db" (there should be one instance of it for every project). When you find them, go backwards up the folder structure to find the outermost folder, which will be "Resolve Disk Database" or something similar if it's the default library.

When you locate it, make a copy and move the copy to the new system disk, preferably at the root level. Then rename the folder to something relevant to your projects.

When that's done, start Resolve, go to the library manager and connect to that library. You'll need to name it and browse to it.

My Windows 11 installation became unbootable...

For that reason, I recommend keeping nothing project related on the System drive.

While you're in rebuild mode, I recommend picking up some additional drives to store all project related files, including the Libraries.

For both organization and speed, I find the following arrangement is a good starting point for working in Resolve.

C: System
D: Libraries
E: Exports
F: Media
G: Gallery/Cache/Proxies


(And of course, do make backups of both Libraries and Projects from time to time. I advise two copies, at least one of them off the system - thumb drive, external, Dropbox, etc.)

Needless to say, most users don't need 5 drives for Resolve. And Jim's advice betrays a certain lack of facility. It's a simple matter to make instant working backups of libraries to other drives. Find the library folder and ctrl+drag to another disk.

Needless to say, most users don't need 5 drives for Resolve.

Of course it's not a NEED.

Just a good idea that offers several benefits, including the prevention of this very problem.

"This problem" can just easily occur on a non-system drive. The solution is backups. And of course most here are using the default library which resides on the system disk, however much you wish BMD took your advice and abandoned long-standing practice.

"This problem" can just easily occur on a non-system drive.

Failure to boot because of Windows updates?

most here are using the default library which resides on the system disk

You're probably right.

But I do think that practice is a potential problem we should advocate solving.

I'm aware that nobody boots from non-system drives. Non-system drives have been known to fail, however.

The answer is backups, not where the library resides. And the ideal backup, as I see it, is an actual copy of the library, not a .diskdb file.

The answer is backups, not where the library resides.

See, I think both are good practices. I think the former alone leaves a potential issue in place, and that's a bad practice.

Can one assume you were using the default library (aka "database")? In any event, use Windows to search the old system disk for "project.db" (there should be one instance of it for every project). When you find them, go backwards up the folder structure to find the outermost folder, which will be "Resolve Disk Database" or something similar if it's the default library.

When you locate it, make a copy and move the copy to the new system disk, preferably at the root level. Then rename the folder to something relevant to your projects.

When that's done, start Resolve, go to the library manager and connect to that library. You'll need to name it and browse to it.

Thank you this helped a lot. I forgot that I had also updated my PC in the middle and was able to reuse my old drives and do a windows upgrade. Somewhere along he lines I moved the davinci project database to a non-standard location and couldn't find where it was. Searching for project.db helped me find it and I was able to restore the projects.

I used to schedule a clone of my system drive to an external hard drive but after my last big upgrade I forgot to set that back up.

As to setting up 5 separate drives, I don't think that's a good idea and it would not have helped this situation. None of my data was lost. Having 5 single points of failure isn't much better than having 1. I keep all my data and libraries on an internal raid 10 array and back that up. I don't see the purpose of this off-topic discussion in this thread.

...Having 5 single points of failure isn't much better than having 1...

Five single points of failure make it five times more likely that you will experience a failure (assuming equal failure probability for each). This is one of the reasons why the private pilot fatality rate is higher for light twin-engine aircraft than for light single-engine aircraft.

I don't like to keep my old projects lying around in the database because I'm always leery that upgrades to new database versions might screw them up. And if I'm not actively working on a project, it doesn't need to be stored in a database format. So when I finish up with a project I export it to a ".drp" file that's co-located with all of the other project assets and then delete the project from the database.

For active projects, I also regularly (daily or more often depending on how much work I'm doing) export to DRP files with date/time suffixes so I have a way to go back to previous versions if needed. This has saved my bacon once or twice, and is IMHO far easier than trying to restore earlier versions of a database to do the same thing.

I don't like to keep my old projects lying around in the database because I'm always leery that upgrades to new database versions might screw them up. And if I'm not actively working on a project, it doesn't need to be stored in a database format. So when I finish up with a project I export it to a ".drp" file that's co-located with all of the other project assets and then delete the project from the database.

I agree with you in a way, but I just create a new project database every year, so there are "Marc_2022," "Marc_2023," "Marc_2024" databases that just have the projects done in that year. I ignore the other ones unless there's an emergency where I really need them. I absolutely do rely on exported DRP projects as a daily backup, and once the project is finished, then I'll export a "Project_Name_FINAL_date" backup just so I know when and where it was completely finished, and then that gets archived with all the source material. Chances are, I'll never need it... but you never know.

It’s like an umbrella. If you take it with you, it won’t rain

All excellent recommendations to be safe just in case something bad happens.

I wonder what the “something bad” rate is with Resolve compared to Premiere, Avid, and FCPX. I only hang out here so don’t have a feel for how many people have problems in this area on the other NLEs.

don't like to keep my old projects lying around in the database because I'm always leery that upgrades to new database versions might screw them up. And if I'm not actively working on a project, it doesn't need to be stored in a database format. So when I finish up with a project I export it to a ".drp" file that's co-located with all of the other project assets and then delete the project from the database.

I agree with you in a way, but I just create a new project database every year, so there are "Marc_2022," "Marc_2023," "Marc_2024" databases that just have the projects done in that year.

The potential danger in that is that if you ever need to go back and resurrect a project from, say, 2018, you may find that Resolve will no longer support the conversion of database formats from that far back to the current format. It's common for software developers to support conversion from the immediately preceding format to the current one, but beyond that it's a bit of a crap shoot in my experience.

I suppose it's possible that this issue could exist with the DRP files as well, but it seems less likely to me.

That shouldn't be a huge issue, given the fact that BM is still offering all the older versions and doesn't stop you from going back (like Adobe). So, worst case, you can temporarily install an older version.

That shouldn't be a huge issue, given the fact that BM is still offering all the older versions and doesn't stop you from going back (like Adobe). So, worst case, you can temporarily install an older version.

Yeah, but who wants to have to do that? There's also the potential to run into OS compatibility issues if you're going back far enough.

Not trying to be argumentative, just saying that DRP copies of your projects are a simple way to avoid any of those potential issues. Judging from the number of posts I see here about database issues and recovering from project problems, it seems like DRP project backups is something that goes a bit under the radar for a lot of folks. Or maybe it's just that they haven't yet acquired the "back everything up" mindset that one tends to develop through hard-earned experience.

Having once lost a big project (my own fault entirely) I am now obsessed with exporting DRPs to three external hard drives several times during a day's work. Excessive? Probably but it only takes literally a minute to do all three copies and the knowledge that all that work is safe is priceless. I also back up databases on a weekly basis to three different external drives. Again, only takes just over a minute. These drives are so inexpensive in the overall costs involved to me it's a no brainer.

Needless to say, most users don't need 5 drives for Resolve. And Jim's advice betrays a certain lack of facility. It's a simple matter to make instant working backups of libraries to other drives. Find the library folder and ctrl+drag to another disk.

Actually, we do the exact same thing that Jim advise. Sure, you can get by with fewer drives. I think many users would be served fine just by remembering to manually backup their sessions daily as a DRP file and export it to their source drive.

Having once lost a big project (my own fault entirely) I am now obsessed with exporting DRPs to three external hard drives several times during a day's work. Excessive? Probably but it only takes literally a minute to do all three copies and the knowledge that all that work is safe is priceless. I also back up databases on a weekly basis to three different external drives. Again, only takes just over a minute. These drives are so inexpensive in the overall costs involved to me it's a no brainer.

I don't think you need to do three every day, but you figure if it's in the Project Manager and you export a copy to the source drive somewhere, you've got two. If you used the Blackmagic Cloud, you could have the third copy automatically. When I freelance for different post facilities, I carry a thumb drive so the session file (sans media) can go on a thumb drive that goes in my pocket. Even if the post company burns to the ground, we'll have a copy... sometime, somewhere, somehow.