Renamed project file and all tracking lost! Help!

Hey guys!
 
First time to post here: what an exciting little community.  I'm excited to check out some threads!  What's brought me here is a bit of a disaster!  Firstly, here are my computer specs:
 
Intel Core2 Duo CPU, E6550 @ 2.33 GHz
8GB RAM
4.5 TB HDD
Windows 7 64 bit
(yep, I need to upgrade!)
 
and I'm using Sonar X2 Producer.  I've been using it for about 1.5 years and love it, and am contemplating upgrading to X3.  I run a professional home studio in Melbourne, Australia and have just bumped into a problem I've never had before and I can't solve it.
 
I have started tracking a new project a few days ago and have pretty much completed one song for it with several vocal overdubs, about 4 midi instrument tracks (including full, detailed session drummer 3 sequencing), electric guitar, farfisa and a few more things.  The project initially didn't have a name, but when a name came, I changed the folder name and the cwp file name to reflect the new title.  The next day when I opened the session EVERYTHING WAS GONE!  Holy ****.  Not even a console window showed up: just an empty tracking window.  The only remnant left of what I'd done was the metronome time and signature!  I tried renaming it back to what it was, but the same problem.  Anybody got ideas how I can restore the session to how it was?!  I've lost about 3 full days of work.  I can redo it all, but probably will take me a full day (especially with several vocal takes with overdubs sprinkled all over), so seeing if I can avoid that.  Any help would be great appreciated!
 
warm regards,
 
Adam

Thanks for your reply, Bob!  There was nothing in the recycle bin.  As far as I know, there were no disc failures/blue screens etc.  I happily shutdown my PC, and this morning, voila, my cwp file is an empty shell!  I checked the event viewer (didn't know there was such a thing: thanks for the tip!), and there was one critical error in the last 7 days, which was relating to my network and a few errors that I can't point back toward this problem.  Totally bamboozled by this one!

Are the audio takes still in the audio folder?

Well, the timings of all of the audio clips should be maintained, if they are Broadcast Wave clips (which have the embedded time-stamp info in them).  There is a Preferences option that when set will import audio clips at their embedded time-stamps.
 
I ALWAYS make a backup of any project I am about to work on, so that no matter what happens I at least go no farther back than what I just started.  I also save frequently during any work on a project, and never leave a project open if I am going to go off and do something, like eat lunch or whatever.
 
Moving forward, developing and religiously following a backup process will ensure the highest level of success with preserving your data.
 
I wish I had some sort of idea as to what could have happened - I have no recollection of ever seeing any post where this sort of thing has happened - though I certainly could have missed them in the past.
 
Sorry this happened to you.
 
Bob Bone
 

Could you maybe have accidentally dragged it into your audio sub-folder?
 
How did you rename it?
 
How are you looking for it?  Opening in Sonar?  Windows Explorer?
 
Bob Bone
 

Renaming files and folders works fine normally. You can run a chkdsk and see if there is any problems with the windows file system. Perhaps it will repair the file.
 
You said you looked to see if there were any shadow copies of the original file? as already mentioned you should make a habit of backing up anything you don't want to loose regularly. Having said that I probably would have just renamed the file like you did.
 
By the way do you have the autosave on in Sonar? If you you may be able to recover a previous version of the file.
 
Good luck.

Oh I missed that detail, I assumed he did a save as! Oh Oh, I would think renaming the CWP icon would be a bad deal. Sonar spooks me so much I'm even afraid to move stuff around once it's working. But I use folders for each song and re naming the folder is no big deal, but the icon is not something I'd mess with. So OP has done 2 things wrong here. The audio data should be unscathed but not sure what happens to midi when you corrupt a CWP icon file. 

Cactus Music
I changed the folder name and the cwp file name to reflect the new title. 
 
 I tried renaming it back to what it was, but the same problem.

He may not be renaming it right. He will have to use Explorer to name it as it was as well as the folder. I do know this that Sonar will prompt for missing audio if the project knows it is missing. By going outside Sonar and not using Save As that project may be trashed.  

He's sleeping on it right now! Down under! 
 
1:14 AM
Saturday, May 3, 2014 (EST)
Time in Canberra ACT, Australia

When you re-name, the CWP file, you need to do a "save as" in Sonar. If you just change the name of the folder and CWP file extension, sonar doesn't know you did it.

Yep: I've used 'save as' in the past, but I didn't want it to create a new folder and reimport all the wave files.

HUH? You do not need to create a new folder and re-import all the wave files when using save as.
 
'Save as 'makes a new file extension. Not a new folder. You will always have one per project folder for each project. 

Its not a 2nd copy and you can always delete the other file extension. It saves another CWP file exstension. You will always have one folder, no matter how many 'save as' you do, when saving to the same folder location.
 
This is what you need to do if you want to change the name after the fact. It doesn't matter if you do not want 2 file extensions, you will need to do it. 
 
Your stuck on this 2nd folder thing and it will not make a 2nd folder. You can delete the old CWP file extension. Its done all the time and this is how you do it.

I routinely do "save as". Le's say I have a project called "new". After I have worked on it for a bit I do a "save as" to "new1". Then later "new2" and so on. That way I can go back to points where I know exactly what stage that project was at. I also use Sonar' versioning system, where Sonar itself automatically renames files as they are saved in different versions.
 
I have never, ever seen Sonar create a new folder, copy the audio files or anything like it when I do this. Not once. Not in Sonar 6, not in X3 and not in any and all versions between them. Sonar simply creates a new .cwp file in the original directory but with the new file name.
 
That is all.

There are a couple things that are not well explained.
 
Most important is always do a save or save as from within Sonar. This is important because the project file holds pointers to any files external to the project. These include  wave files. When you use save as how it does what it does is determined by whether per project folders is checked in preferences. Without it being checked no audio is ever moved because it will be in a global audio folder.However the name of the audio files is determined by the name of the project file. The Project can't know where or what audio is present if the names don't match. Therefore even though a dialog should pop up asking for missing audio it wont work. Even if you know where the audio is the project wont load it because it will be the wrong name. The pointers are looking for the original names. Those were not changed because all you did was rename the project file with Windows explorer. 
 
The huge mistake was renaming the project with explorer. Don't ever do that again.