Collections lost in Windows Movie Maker

[DannyG57]

Thanks for having me! I lost all my hard earned clips in my collections from Windows Movie Maker after at least a hundred hours of edeting, twice, and was told that it could be from having performed a "System Restore". Can anyone help suggest a way to avoid this from happening in the future?
Also: I have been editing the clips while they are in the collections clipboard instead of the time line. Is that not a good practice and by having them edited in the timeline, would I then save them as a project every so often to avoid loosing them? If so any hints on doing so would be greatly appreciated as well as detailed instructions since I haven’t yet learned the entire lingo necessary to understand what’s being said. Thanks again

DannyG57

 

[g-paw]

I don't know if Windows Movie does this, it should, but I use Cyberlink Power Director 5 that allows me to save my projects as avi files so I don't have to worry about the program, i.e., as an avi file I can use it with any video editing program. Generally project files can only be read by the program that creates them and are linked to a particular video file in a specific place. Obviously this takes up more space . I also save projects to a different partition or drive than the OS and programs are on and so less likely to lose them.

 

[grwrogs]

Did you discover the original cause of the loss?
Then did you find either a backup folder or navigation options to the lost collections data at other locations?
MS solutions are vague for this problem.
GWR