missing data in AE.5

[ted chandler]

I recently - feverishly animated a ton of graphics for a 60 second spot for a client on tuesday before thanksgiving last week. I saved the AE.5 project on a pc running windows 2000 professional version that afternoon and sent out the proof. Today, i get the revisions from the client and i try to open the project and it gives me an error message. The message states "After Effects error : missing data in file ( 33 :: 4)" Does anybody have clue on how to fix this situation so I do not have to go back and re-animate all the motion graphics again as i am up against an impossible deadline. One more thing, I believe the CPU must have crashed because the date on the last saved version is not that of last tuesday's. The date for the file i need opened is January 16, 2002. Thanks in advance for your help.

ted chandler,
creative director,
skystorm productions

[stevo patterson]

ooohhhhh.....always sucks to hear of a potentially dismal occasion. they haven't upgraded 5.0 to 5.5 in your absence, have they? you may want to try to create a new project, and import your most rencent save to see what can be salvaged. if you think that the last file saved (jan. 16th) is your best bet at being the most recent project that you used (also make sure that the date/time settings on the computer are correct), then it's possible that the file in question somehow got curropted (which always sucks). did you experience any major crashes while working on the machine last week? any crashes during rendering?

rhth
-stev-o