[b]PLEASE HELP??[/b]

[popsnot]

Hi,

I burnt 2 different brand blank DVD-R's a couple of months ago with Data files off my HDD as a back up and they have worked fine until just recently when i reinstalled my windows XP.. it reads as if they are blank.. its a pretty serious problem as i did not have these files backed up anywhere else except on these DVD's and i have used these DVD's around 10-15times each so i know they DID work fine..
Can anyone help???

PLEASE!??

[Roundabout]

Did you check to make sure the files you burned were actually on the discs before you reformatted/reinstalled? Have you checked them on another PC to see if the files are there? Does your DVD burner recognize files on any discs at all?
Are they DVD-R's? If they are, you can only burn one time onto them (unless they are DVD-RW's), or if you make them multisession and leave the session open (using ISO file mode). You said you used them 10 or 15 times each, so they probably are DVD-RW's. What program did you use to burn them? If they had the files on them before and you just can't see the files now, have you tried something like Isobuster to see if you can extract the files? If you burned multisession discs on DVD-R or RW, you may be able to see the files with Isobuster and extract them to your hard drive. Or, if worse comes to worst, you could use another PC and extract/burn the files on another disc and transfer them to your PC that way.

[popsnot]

Hi,

what i mean by using them 10-15 times.. is i put them in the dvd drive to get files off .. they are DVD-R's and they are both 2 diffrent brands.. not sure at this moment what brand as i am at work.. but i have tried them on my mates PC on his DVD-ROM and DVD-Recorder Drives.. both showed the DVD-R's as Blank DVD's..
it was only after i reinstalled my XP that i could not read both DVD's so my thoughts were that somehow XP might have had some security setting on the DVD's so that i could only read them in my computer.. which would be weird!! i have not tried Isobuster i might though at some stage.. but its just strange they were both working just before i reinstalled...

[Roundabout]

So you're sure these exact discs were the ones you were able to read files off of before? I've sometimes mixed up my blanks with discs I've written on and took me a while to figure out that they really were blanks!
But if you have labels or some type of writing on them, it's hard to mix them up, right? I've started marking everything in some way just so I know that it's been written to and not a blank.
Not a good sign if your mate's reader/writer can't see anything on the disc either. If you're sure they are the correct discs, then that's the only suggestion I can make, to try Isobuster and see if it can see anything on the disc at all. Doesn't make sense that it could be burned and still show up as a blank.

[popsnot]

Yeah they are the disc's alright i use a black perm marker on all my DVD's and these 2 blanks were not duplicates of eachother, its just i had to use 2 black DVD's to fit all my backup files on.. and i just burnt them as a normal data DVD no special backup..
but yeah thanks though.. i will try that program later tonight and see if that works.. i tryed to used some DATA recovory software like badcopy pro.. and a couple of others like that which i can't remember the name of them but htey didnt find anything either.. which is just REALLY weird.. as if it was just one disc id say it was stuffed.. but when BOTH DVD-R's that are both diffrent brands stuff up.. its just really weird..