recovering data from Sony CD Mavica media

[deesto]

We have a Sony CD Mavica MVC-CD400, and the thing has started to go bad. It records data to mini CD-Rs. Lately, in the middle of a disc (which can hold hundreds of pictures and several videos), the thing will report a "DISC ERROR" and no longer be able to read from or write to the disc. The discs normally need to be closed/finalized by the unit before they can be read by a PC or other device. When the disc craps out, the unit can't finalize the disc.

I've used a few pieces of software to try and recover the files. Most of them do nothing at all; Zero Assumption Recovery says it can see the data but dies trying to read it; CDRoller picks up the entire file structure (reported to be UDF) and all the file names. Unfortunately, after letting it run for over a week to recover a single disc, it came back with lots of 0 byte files, and other files of full size and with thumbnails in Windows XP, but some of their previews are either scrambled or corrupt, and others say "No preview available" or "Drawing failed", and they can't be loaded into an image editor.

Is there a better way to try and recover the files from the CD media? And any way at all to fix the "corrupt" image files once they come off the disc?

Thanks for your ideas and help.

~John

[aedipuss]

isobuster would be the first thing i'd try.

[deesto]

isobuster would be the first thing i'd try.

Tried that: doing an extract on the disc session, IsoBuster gives "Sector xxxxx couldn't be read" errors at a certain percentage through each of the discs. Of course, once it hits that point is when the files start showing "No preview available", and even if I click "Ignore all" at this point, the process takes forever to progress. If I do "Quit all" (quit each file with errors), I get a bunch of 0 byte files afterward.

Is there another IsoBuster mode that might be more successful? And are all of the "corrupt" image files just hosed?

[Brainiac]

Try BadCopy Pro demo. Can be found here: http://www.jufsoft.com/badcopy/

Brainiac

[deesto]

Try BadCopy Pro demo. Can be found here: http://www.jufsoft.com/badcopy/

Brainiac

Thanks. But even with BadCopy Pro, I get "No preview available" and "Drawing failed" messages, corrupt files, and even some 0 byte files.