Best reader for DVDrs with degredation problem

[Blackout]

Hi,

i have been given some dvdr discs (Ritek...grrr) that are 2-3 years old and have some crucial data on them. The discs have "erased" themselves. Excellent.

I have always used Verbatim. But my old parents (who dont know any better) burnt some photos of the family onto Riteks and now the discs will not even start to read in 90% of drives. Serious panic has crept in. I have been called in to rescue. I know it is called disc degredation. And its generally Ritek that are the worst at this. Thanks Ritek.

The question is, what is the best dvd reader...AT ANY PRICE..for discs that have degraded. i have been quoted $1000 to recover the discs by a professional recovery service. So any drive under $1000 will save me MONEY.

I put one of the discs (no surface marks, perfect-looking condition) into the pioneer drive they were burnt on..."no disc in drive". I have also put them into Sony, LG, Liteon etc drives. Also tried it in a mac laptop. Disc empty.

I did some research and brought an Asus dvd-rom...meant to be good at reading scratched discs, and....it RECOGNISES the disc. And i see the files. But most of them are corrupted upon copying. Ive also tried the program "Bad Copy PRo" with the Asus drive. Funnily enough, the program crashes when trying to read from these "special" dvds.

Please help with your recommendation as to the best DVD Degredation drive reader out there. It seems in a couple of posts that ppl say a BTC drive may seem to save the day. Is this the best? will it go past the Asus drive to get me over the finish line with these devil discs?

MAny Thanks,
Blackout

ps save me the torture of "use better media" lecture in your post please...Thank you.

[oldfart13]

The biggest problem is that this is dye, so they do degrade after awhile. There may be no magic way to recover them. If they had been tape, magnetic discs, etc. then MAYBE you can get something. I'm assuming the pro place said that they MIGHT be able to recover data but not ALL the data? If they didn't, it might be a good idea to check with them.

[wtsinnc]

Hi Blackout.

No definitive "best" exists, just better than most and a model change can turn what was good into only average or even worse;
-or-
vise versa.

Regarding your question about BTC drives;
I've read the same thing but have no personal experience with them.

I will offer this;
Some of the Ritek DVD-Rs I bought roughly six years ago began to physically deteriorate (tiny cracks in the surface) and I was able to transfer the data using a Samsung SH-S202G which was recommended to me in these forums. While the SH-202G is no longer a current model, I'm told Samsung still makes drives with very good read ability.

You've posted in the right place. These forums and those at CDFreaks.com are the best sites I know of for this kind of information.

By the way;
Do you have any idea what brand/model drive and what software the professional recovery service uses ?

[jman98]

If the dye has degraded, I'm not sure how much even a recovery company can do for you. They may only be able to get the files back but they'll mostly be corrupted. Disk drive recovery is different from recovery from CD-R discs because the media is different and while I know that many data recovery companies can work miracles with hard drives, I honestly don't know if they can do the same or not with CD-R.

I have some advice for the future for you. If you have things backed up to disc that you can't afford to lose, you might consider making PAR2 recovery files for them. You can do the research to understand how PAR2 works, but if you keep PAR2 files around for CD-Rs you can't live without, some years from now the PAR2 files might be able to save your data, depending on how big the corruption is and how much of the data you made recoverable via PAR2 (10% is generally used, but you can go higher).

[stiltman]

seems in a couple of posts that ppl say a BTC drive may seem to save the day. Is this the best?

Can't say it's the best, but I have one JUST for reading problem discs. It's never let me down. It's a 2-3 year old model, and it's been cross-flashed. I'd have to pull it out of the case to look at the model #, but I doubt you could find a new one any way.

[lordsmurf]

I've got several BTC drives that are used for reading discs. It is most definitely the best drive out there for reading. The Pioneer 111 drive did come close second.

[joecass]

Is it possible that your "old" parents never finalized the DVD R discs ?
Maybe that would account for the non-readability...... did you try using
ISO Buster on a computer to extract the files ? That might help

[Blackout]

Thanks everyone for the tips. i knew this was the best place to post.

yes they finalised the discs. They burnt them in nero.

Personally i burn all data i really want to keep to two different media (Verbatim & Sony) on two different drives. at 4x.

But if you have parents that are not "tech-savvy" you will understand the fight that you have on your hands just to get them from calling you at 4am to ask which way to hold the mouse. Let alone creating PAR2 recoveries.

In relation to BTC drives...do *all* of their models exhibit this miraculous performance..or just a "gifted" few?

The model that seems to be floating around in some limited quanties still is the BTC BTV-316G...is that a "special" talented model also?

in regards to degredation..my experience is that you might have a few errors today, more tomorrow. So time is of the essence i think.

Also ive found that these bad dye Riteks seem to allow you one decent "pass" and then its like the laser reading the information tears the tracks off, and to try again on the same session in the same drive, you have 10x more errors trying to read the same file. So you really cant keep trying to read the disc too much , it just keeps disrupting the weak dye further and causing more errors. You only have a few good cracks at it.

Id love to know what the error recovery companies use, for sure... no idea however....

Blackout

[Bix]

The easiest BTC to find nowadays is the I/O Magic IDVD16DL.

[wtsinnc]

Hi Blackout;

I don't know anything about these guys, but here's a link that might be of interest;
perhaps someone can comment on them.

http://www.outletpc.com/c1245.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a link to the burner and two roms.

http://search.outletpc.com/?page=1&query=btc&I1.x=54&I1.y=9

[Blackout]

thanks wts.

ive put in an order for the BTC Dvd Rom. in my experience the lasers in dedicated rom readers are "stronger" than the ones in burner combos.

Another thing ive found is that the ability for a laser to read a degredated disc drops significantly due to wear/use. So a fresh new drive is much more likely to read problems than an old drive.

Lets see how the BTC performs. Just for fun i ordered the Samsung drive as well, some good reports of samsung drives reading scratched discs better than others also on here. At $35 i have nothing to lose.

That will make my list of dvd drives : Pioneer, Asus, LG, Liteon, Samsung, Sony, BTC and whatever an Apple imac laptop has. Lets see what comes out on top. I will make sure i post the results here for u all

Many Thanks,
Blackout

[budz]

The LG drives are also good readers since their drives are ripped locked. In other words they rip slow. The latest PIONEER 116 & 115 are also good readers. To be honest if the degradation is so bad it may not be readable at all. I've got many flavors of dvd burners and I have to say the LG, SAMSUNG, & the old PLEXTOR 708 & BENQ's are able to read discs that are scratched or did well with crappy CMC & RITEK's discs. Just my 2 cents!

[AlanHK]

As for software, I recommend ISOpuzzle.
It will build an ISO image of a DVD, and make repeated passes till it gets all the data, or you tell it to stop.
And you can transfer this image and its "flag" file to another PC and try to fill in the blanks using a different drive.

You can extract data from the ISO with many tools, but just don't try to do that while ISOpuzzle is running.

[lordsmurf]

As for software, I recommend ISOpuzzle.
It will build an ISO image of a DVD, and make repeated passes till it gets all the data, or you tell it to stop.
And you can transfer this image and its "flag" file to another PC and try to fill in the blanks using a different drive.
You can extract data from the ISO with many tools, but just don't try to do that while ISOpuzzle is running.

Yes, do this.

[Blackout]

has anyone heard of any drastic treatements to "extract" the data once from a degraded cd...im thinking for example a 10 second run in the microwave to stirr up the ink in the dvd ...or throwing it in the freezer overnight....these kinda things...? i know theres a few tricks for HDs, just wandering if there is anything someone has heard of for dvds...

Blackout

[Blackout]

ok all my dvdroms have arrived and been installed, and ive done some extensive tests. Here are the results.

Ive decided to grade them with a comment.

#1: / Asus DVD Rom - 8/10.(Sata) - This thing is amazing. Discs that all other drives say is "empty" it spins up and says yeah...heres whats on it. But most of the time if its in that situation and no other drive can even get a TOC, then the Asus unfortunately cant get you much further...it cant get all the data off....crc errors. Do not put this puppy into an audio machine...it polls the cpu constantly and causes glitches in audio whenever its connected....annoying (took me ages to figure out it was this thing that was causing the problem!) also once it gets a dvd placed into it, the drive keeps spinning. Forever. The green light just sits on. For hours. even in idle. quirky....but this thing does tha biz. Use it, and then unplug it.

#2: / Samsung DVD Burner (Sata) - 8/10. This is *almost* as good overall as the Asus, but let down in some areas and better in others. Let me explain. It does not seem to "see" really bad discs as easily as the Asus..ie read the TOC. Sometimes it cannot read the TOC when the Asus can. BUT...on discs it CAN read the TOC for...it pulls the data off better than the Asus! eg some old crappy Princo DVD-RWs i had and had given up on, and it pulled 100% of the data off them all !!...when the Asus got CRC errors on every file on them. But it does seem to have less luck actually seeing a disc. If i have no luck with the Asus i drop the disc in the Samsung, and if it pops up with a directory there is a cheer! and it pulls 100% of the data off every time. this one and the Asus together are an awsome combination.

#3: / BTC DVD Rom (IDE only available) - 7/10 - Does a commendable job. sees a lot of discs that other drives cannot. Its reputation is valid. But it didnt pull any data that the Asus or Samsung could not get to already.

#4: / Apple Laptop dvd Drive (7/10). Does a good job. Better than the general pack below. Seems that laptop dvd drives are quite "error friendly"...they have to put up with a lot of bumping and streses out in the field..so they seem to have been made to be not as fussy....and do a decent job reading. But nothing that #1 or #2 could pull off.

#5: / Sony Vaio laptop dvd drive (7/10) - See comments above.

#6: / Lite-On (Ide) - 6/10 - Sees some problem discs. A pretty good dvd burner for the price. Just nothing special in the damaged-reading dvd department. Has the same errors as the BTC above, but doesnt see as many bad discs....ie cannot read the TOC.

#7: / LG - (Ide) - Nothing special. 6/10. Similar to the Lite-on for performance.

#8: / Pioneer (Sata or IDE) - 4/10. nice burners but when it comes to reading faded dvdrs its damn-well useless. Never even sees the disc or the TOC. More rudely it just spins for a few seconds and just gives up very fast....too fast for my liking. I keep begging it to "try a little longer" but it just could not care less, and gives up in your face. Unless the disc is stellar condition, forget trying a Pioneer. Also fairly slow at extraction. (i have four models of Pioneers...all the same).



ok theres the results. As you can see nothing got above an 8/10...as more than 50% of my Ritek "faded" discs are still unable to be read. Thats over 50 discs i have sitting here in a pile... (all my worst Ritek faded discs have a factory code curling around the centre hole that start with "H4..."..i brought two 50x spindles of these cancerous pieces of crap).

I wander how a "recovery" company would do with my pile of errors....its almost worth trying....hope all this info helps

Blackout

[gilius2k14]

I found a disc whose 4 VOBs will rip to a different percentage on different DVD-Writers, so have been testing a number of drives out recently to give an indication of their ripping potential. The drives that rip this one disc the best are also, generally, the more powerful and consistent I find - though more testing with different types of scratched discs would yield more accurate results. Also, some are more powerful at reading the TOC than others.

Has any other tests ever been carried out of this kind before? What other brands would you recommend I purchase? Are Blu-ray drives any better at reading DVDs?

Samsung SH-216BB OCT 2012 INT(SATA) 100.00%
Samsung SH-224DB JUN 2014 INT(SATA) 99.99%
Asus DRW-24F1ST APR 2014 INT(SATA) 85.25%
Plextor DVDR PX-891SAW SEP 2013 INT(SATA) 64.50%
Philips/Lite-On 2 eTAU-108 FEB 2010 (WHITE ROUND) EXT 49.25%
Toshiba/Samsung TS-U633F SLIM INT (SATA) 46.00%
Aopen DSW2012PA SEP 2007 INT(IDE) 41.75%
Emprex INT(IDE) 41.50%
BTC BDV-316B FEB 2002 INT(IDE) 41.50%
Toshiba/Samsung TS-U633J SLIM INT (SATA) 39.50%
Philips/Lite-On DH-16A6S INT(SATA) 38.75%
Philips/Lite-On DH-16AES INT(SATA) 38.25%
HITACHI-LG GH82N INT(SATA) 37.75%
Pioneer DVR-221LBK JAN 2014 INT(SATA) 34.00%
Philips/Lite-On PLDS DH-16ABS APR 2011 INT(SATA) 34.00%
Matshita DVD-RAM UJ890AS SLIM INT(SATA) 21.75%
Philips/Lite-On 1 eSAU208 JUN 2007 (BLACK FLAT) EXT 33.25%
BTC DRW1108 2005 INT(IDE) 29.00%
Matshita UJ8E1 SLIM INT (SATA) 25.00%
HP dvd1260i FEB 2013 INT(SATA) 25.00%
Samsung SE-S084 APR 2011 EXT 24.00%
Pioneer DVR-219L INT(SATA) 17.50%
BTC BCO 5216IM OCT 2003 INT(IDE) 14.75%
Toshiba/Samsung TS-H653G May 2009 INT(SATA) 9.50%
Philips/Lite-On 3 (BLACK ROUND) EXT 6.00%
Pioneer EXT On order
Sony AD-5260S-01 INT(SATA) On order
BenQ DW1640 INT(IDE) On order

[redwudz]

gilius2k14 , not sure of your motivation, but it closely resembles spam. I'll let this thread stand for now. It is also not good forum ethics to post in really old threads. Your other post has been deleted as a duplicate. Please don't post the same threads to different forums.

*It's really better to start a new thread, even if there is an old thread on a similar subject. If in doubt, contact a Mod. Our search system will generally link to other similar threads.

Moderator redwudz

[gilius2k14]

You can compare my reply to the one before that; what on earth gave you the impression that my post resembles spam!? Mine is the most informative and best contribution to this topic - still relevant 6 years later for people searching Google for "best dvd writer for reading scratched discs".

You would be in a minority regarding your forum policy; other forums mostly advise searching for an existing thread before starting a new one, otherwise that would be spam according to the majority.

There was no need to lay down the law here; your response only makes you appear narcissistic.

[hech54]

There was no need to lay down the law here; your response only makes you appear narcissistic.

OK....how about this then.
Anybody with half of a brain would have stopped at 100%

Samsung SH-216BB OCT 2012 INT(SATA) 100.00%

[nic2k4]

...still relevant 6 years later for people searching Google for "best dvd writer for reading scratched discs".

Err... You sure? Where on Earth do you buy a BTC drive, last I saw one on store shelf was about 10 years ago. BTC doesn't even have drives in their product line anymore.

There was no need to lay down the law here

You can never be too prudent these days, BTW are you with CoLP?

[usually_quiet]

You can compare my reply to the one before that; what on earth gave you the impression that my post resembles spam!? Mine is the most informative and best contribution to this topic - still relevant 6 years later for people searching Google for "best dvd writer for reading scratched discs".

You would be in a minority regarding your forum policy; other forums mostly advise searching for an existing thread before starting a new one, otherwise that would be spam according to the majority.

There was no need to lay down the law here; your response only makes you appear narcissistic.

If you tacked the same information onto the end of a different thread here, cross-posting is specifically prohibited in Video Help's forum rules. [Edit]I can recall one or two members who have "spammed" the forum by adding the same information to the end of every related thread they can find.

No, most forums ask members to search for answers in existing threads before posting a question. The fact that "grave-robbing" or "grave-digging" exist as pejorative terms for posting in long-dead threads contradicts your idea that most forums want posters to do that instead of starting a new thread. Most forums also close threads after a period of inactivity to prevent grave-robbing. This one doesn't, but expects posters to think before posting in a dead thread.

The moderators here are reasonably tolerant people, but insulting a moderator in any forum is unwise.

[AlanHK]

Testing one single disc on one single drive isn't a reliable way to score a model of burner.
Also the action putting the disc in a drive may have either cleaned it or scratched it, it surely heats it, or you put a thumbprint on it, so you aren't even sure you're using the identical disc.

There's a database of DVD players here: https://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers
Users can add their ratings so there is a larger sample.

[gilius2k14]

The last four replies are so retarded that it's not worth my time pointing out the flawed logic in all of them. I'll leave you monkeys to police each other, though I feel sorry for the next new member who gets pounced on by worthless trolls, for making a legitimate contribution.

[AlanHK]

The last four replies are so retarded that it's not worth my time pointing out the flawed logic in all of them. I'll leave you monkeys to police each other, though I feel sorry for the next new member who gets pounced on by worthless trolls, for making a legitimate contribution.

Well, **** you very much too.

[usually_quiet]

The last four replies are so retarded that it's not worth my time pointing out the flawed logic in all of them. I'll leave you monkeys to police each other, though I feel sorry for the next new member who gets pounced on by worthless trolls, for making a legitimate contribution.

If you cannot tolerate anyone disagreeing with you or criticizing your posts, you should probably avoid posting in any Internet forum.

[JoeS99]

I just want to relate a recent experience- I have a Memorex DVD -R that I burned about seven years ago. It contains a documentary that I found interesting. I found that the disk would not play in my DVD player. It reached a certain point and the video pixelated horribly and froze. This disk would not play in other DVD players nor my computer DVD drives (player/burners). I put the disk aside. Last year, I purchased a laptop with a Blu-Ray burner. It didn't occur to me until now to try this disk in it, and what do you know- it reads the disk without error! I was able to copy the files and burn a new DVD. So, hold on to that disk, it may not be hopeless.

[nic2k4]

... for making a legitimate contribution.

Honestly, your contribution looks really odd, there seems to be no point to it; big clue, why tell us about drives that aren't available. My first impression was navel gazing. As was pointed out, for a "review" it is deeply flawed, there's no description of the methodology used, nothing on the provenance of the drives tested and no actual proof of the results obtained.

The environment you test in will affect the test, did you clean the disc before every test, did that BTC from 2003 sit at the bottom of a basement for years collecting dust and mold, how did you rip the disc, did you average your results...

In all the only conclusion I can take from your test is that new drives work better than old (used?) ones, so I'll humbly say thank you for that insight.

You should realize that all forums are populated by users with a wide range of knowledge, errors will be pointed out.

Now to give you an answer to the legitimate question you posed; no, bluray drives aren't better at reading DVD's. All of the different optical media require a separate laser to be read, so a bluray drive has three lasers. In other words, the DVD reading laser is the same as any old DVD-ROM. As your test showed a new drive performs better than an old one, so reading a "defective" disc in a new bluray drive doesn't mean that bluray is superior.

[johns0]

The last four replies are so retarded that it's not worth my time pointing out the flawed logic in all of them. I'll leave you monkeys to police each other, though I feel sorry for the next new member who gets pounced on by worthless trolls, for making a legitimate contribution.

Not only do you insult the regulars here who actually help people you insult the unfortunate people with challenging conditions,shame on you.

[JoeS99]

... for making a legitimate contribution.

Honestly, your contribution looks really odd, there seems to be no point to it; big clue, why tell us about drives that aren't available.
.
.

In other words, the DVD reading laser is the same as any old DVD-ROM. As your test showed a new drive performs better than an old one, so reading a "defective" disc in a new bluray drive doesn't mean that bluray is superior.

Who said anything is superior?

So, are you always so full of yourself?