Premiere Pro File will NOT load
 

I think I saw a similar post at one time on this board, but I can't find it now. Anyway, I am working on a video project that has been opening fine - until today. When loading the file, it gets to about 98% and just HANGS there. The first time it happened, I started a new project and imported the hanging project into it with no problem. Later, when I tried to re-open the "new" file, it hung in the same place (98%). Naturally, I figured I could repeat the "import" trick, but this time it hung there as well.

I know that Premeire has to locate and verify all linked files when you open a project, but this is way beyond "normal" slow start times (I finally aborted the attempt after 45 min.)

I am defraging the A/V drive now, in hopes that it may help, but I was wondering if anyone else has run into this and what (if any) solution was found.

Thanks.

Update
 

I found a solution (at least in my case) for this. Just in case anyone else runs into this problem, I thought I should post the steps I took here:

1) Defrag the HDD (took 14 hours on my machine)

2) Open the latest AutoSave file and Re-Save

3) (Important) Expand the project window and click the flyout menu to edit columns. Rearrange the columns to show "VIDEO USAGE" and "AUDIO USAGE" next to the label. Select any such items NOT being used anywhere in your project (unless you plan to use them later) and delete the references. If the reference is to a stand-alone video, audio, or graphic file, you can even delete them from your HDD first, by right clicking and choosing UNLINK MEDIA, then click MEDIA FILES ARE DELETED. This will initially leave the reference as OFFLINE, which you can then delete. Be careful NOT to do this with layered photoshop files, where you may be using another layer from the same file, as Premiere will delete the ENTIRE file (it can't delete the individual layer)

***CAUTION*** This procedure will delete the file from the HDD, and it will NOT be available to any other project, so make sure you truly don't need it elsewhere.

This procedure cut the size of the Premiere file down from 28 MB to 10 MB and gave me over 17 gigs of disk space back.

Now the project opens in 45 sec.

Hope this helps anyone else in this situation.

Thanks....