Old dvds data = disapeared. Anything I can do?

[007craft]

Ok its been around 3 years now since I started burning DVDs. Unfortunetly, I have over 500 burns now that dont work. The disc just appears as an empty disc in my player, and in my computer it cant detect the disc. All the data has just disapeared. This happens on just about every ritek/ridata disc Ive used, bruned at various speeds with various burners. I knew ritek was trouble tho so I started using taiyo yuden discs around a year ago (never had one of those fail on me) but I still have a bunch of crappy riteks.

Is there anything I can do to get the info back on the disc? Perhaps some sort of device I can buy that scraps away layers on the dvd so its easier to read or something? I want to reburn all my discs onto reliable TY discs but i think im too late

[guns1inger]

If they are not scratched then fiddling with the surface will do nothing for you.

You might try something like ISOPuzzle to retrieve the data, but if it's gone because the quality of the disc was poor and the dye is no longer doing it's thing then you are pretty much screwed.

[yoda313]

or try isobuster. Thats another one touted for recovering tough discs.

[lordsmurf]

Try another player. It's probably not the discs. Having 500 discs that suddenly do not work is pretty much impossible, unless they were stored underwater or outdoors.

[rotten apple]

Try another player. It's probably not the discs. Having 500 discs that suddenly do not work is pretty much impossible, unless they were stored underwater or outdoors.

The impossibility would depend on how bought imo - if mass BUDGET repacked buys (which may seem initially attractive short term) that were closish together the chance for a crappy batch(es) (which is saying something given the crappy quality of normal ridata/ritek) would have the highest chance of being behind this unfortunate experience and as stated the loss of so much dye means complete loss of information - NO software can make something out of nothing , they depend on enough data being there even if they indirectly extrapolate it.

Depending on the personal value of your optical media and future storage plans DATA double backing up with media of an alternative (but still quality) brand AND/ or from a completely different manufacture periods ( and storing them in a completely seperate building as relating to destruction by fire) is extreme but BOTH ACTUALLY going like this (If either at all) at around the same time is therefore practically impossible.

[lordsmurf]

The whole "batch" thing is online myth.

Ritek media has a really inferior reflective quality, and they can be harder to read. That's all this is.