Important data dissapearing from Cd. Need Recovery !

[cyflyer]

Been away for a while, and come back to a redesigned site. Whow !

Anyways, to the point in question. Loads of CD's with Tiff photo files scanned and saved about three years ago+ and were fine then. Trying to open some of the photos now (on a Verbatim datalife cd) and getting 'disc error' on about 60% of the photo files. You can see the data is there, and the files are listed, but don't open. I always thought cd files were rock solid, not such a short life span. Shit, shit, shit. Sorry. One thing I noticed about this specific disc that it seems to be very transparent/translucent and you can read the titling through the base layer, more so than on the other similar discs. Is this a case of crappy disc, or a normal deterioration of cd data ? I'm at my wits end and really need to recover the photos. They're for an important book project and I can't get the originals again. Really peeved off here. Help, guys, please !

[fredfillis]

Isobuster might be worth a shot, may take a while to run though. 2 days on a mini dvd for me

[aedipuss]

most likely out of luck. if you can see through the dye layer of the cd then there isn't anything left for the laser to reflect off of. mostly only happens with cheap media but "rot" happens. only way to slow it down is to store cds in sealed black plastic bags in a freezer right after burning.

[cyflyer]

fredfillis - you're a lifesaver (well, partually). Attempting one by one file through Isobuster, and with a lot of prompting, I salvaged half of them. When 'badsectors' message box comes up you have keep 'retry' until it moves on, if you 'skip' any sectors, the photos don't open. Thats quite something, thanks. All I need is some stronger medicine to get the other badasses that refused to budge. I suppose when I resave them all to another cd all will be well.

aedipuss - thats really bad news when the dye layer just fades away, just like that ! And Verbatim ??

So whats the strongest treatment to recover the others ?

[AlanHK]

So whats the strongest treatment to recover the others ?

Isopuzzle.

[fredfillis]

When 'badsectors' message box comes up you have keep 'retry' until it moves on, if you 'skip' any sectors, the photos don't open.

Yeah, thats the tough part. In my case, I suspect the data was there but the "map" to the sectors / clusters that make up the file was corrupted. Back in simpler times (and when files were MUCH smaller), I would have used a utility to view and manually repair the File Allocation Table. But that was back in the good 'ol days.

Have you tried other drives? Tried a DVD player?

Isopuzzle sounds like its worth a try, might even give it a go myself on the bad disks I'd given up on totally recovering.

[jman98]

Verbatim should have been OK, but they do sometimes offshore their disc manufacturing to shaky places like India. Part of your problem may have been that you didn't properly store your discs. While I think that putting them in the freezer is overkill, perhaps you left them exposed to the sun or heat, didn't store them in proper individual containers so they got all scratched up, etc.

If you want to keep your data on long lasting CD-Rs, the following discs are considered by many to be as good as they get:
http://www.mam-a-store.com/goldcdr.html
They aren't cheap though, but they should give you the best chance for saving your data for a very long time. Another thing you can do is to use something like QuickPAR and save PAR files for recovery on a separate disc in case your original discs go bad.

Using different drives is an excellent suggestion and you may find that a different drive may have better results reading a bad disc than the drive you are currently using.

[lordsmurf]

MAM-A is crap. Overrated 100% crap. Gold is not better, and the media generally does not stand the test of time like Taiyo Yuden and Mitsubishi has. MAM just markets with lots of buzz words. Their media is no more "archival" than any other. It's a sucker ploy.

The problem here may be the upper layer of the CD-R was damaged. Remember a CD-R does not have the upper poly layer like a DVD, and even a rub can destroy the dye layer.

Translucent discs often mean the disc has zero upper layer protection (no silkscreen, nothing). Even open oxygen can eventually destroy such media.

CD is not DVD. DVD improved this flaw.

[cyflyer]

Just to round off what was happening here, 'fredfillis', tried other players etc but made no difference, I eventually opened all the dodgy files, but one stubborn bugger, by persisting with Isobuster. Isopuzzle was no help, even after I figured out how it works (not very user friendly). So, kudos to Isobuster, thumbs down to Isopuzzle, thanks to all for advise. I can live with one photo lost, however I must check my stacks of other cds with important photo files to see if there are any other nasty surprises lurking, and then back them all up on dvd's or something.

[fredfillis]

Good to hear you've had some success!

Agree you should check your other disks. I've had a lot of issues with older CD's especially and no longer rely on them as "backups". I prefer the belt an braces approach these days, HDD and DVD / miniDV tapes (for video). Quality media is critical.

Cheers!

[cyflyer]

Oh, and when I say back them up on other cd's /dvd's, I mean only on 'THATS' (TY) brand, no cheap shit cd's from now on. This was a wake-up call !