cd drive not readind disc created many years ago?

[mikehende]

Many (many!) years ago I purchased 2 cd's which worked perfect the last time I used them. I now am trying to play them on any of my newer machines, but its CD drive cannot read them. Windows Vista thinks they are empty (0 bytes used) and even on a Standalone cd player it cannot read the disc. The CDs are physically undamaged.

I suspect they may have been written using an older proprietary software, and I wonder if there is any software out there to help me recover the data using a standard CD/DVD RW drive, I searched and searched the net but only found this:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321640

but since there's no way to know either which software was used to created these cd's, which type of machine [standalone of pc] or if pc then which OS back then XP or Win2k e.t.c then any ideas, or is this a hopeless case?

[mikehende]

I also just found this:

http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/ComputerProblems/CD-DVD-Blu-ray-Drive-Problems/windows-...windows-98.htm

I am guessing then my best bet may be to try to find a very old pc with original cdrom and try the dics on it?

[Baldrick]

Try the free version isobuster and see if it can find anything.

[jman98]

If they were really written in a non-standard way, which is what your first post hints at, they wouldn't have played at all even years ago. Your link in the 2nd post talks about non-finalized discs. It's well known that non-finalizing a disc leads to problems. I would suggest that you try to put them in different drives in different PCs and see if you any have any luck. However, there is some possibility that whoever burned it used crap media which has since degraded. If that's the case then you probably won't ever be able to get anything off the discs.

[piano632]

Try free version of MiniTool Power Data Recovery:

http://download.cnet.com/MiniTool-Power-Data-Recovery-Free-Edition/3000-2094_4-10561431.html

If this doesn't work, probably nothing will. Also works on hard drives, flash drives, memory sticks, etc. It may take hours to recover files however.

[mikehende]

Isobuster does not work. MPDR shows one file as "Audiotrack01.cda" 2.56gb, this sounds correct as this is a mixed continuous cd of 18 songs with no gaps in between so I am guessing it is being read a just one file or track but when I try to recover the file the "free" version has a recovery limit of only 1gb and it's hard for me to pay $50 for the software for this one time use and also not 100% sure this will work?

[hech54]

MPDR shows one file as "Audiotrack01.cda" 2.56gb, this sounds correct

Not really. That is too big for one CD.

[mikehende]

That's what I was just thinking because even if the cd contained 20 songs that would equal 20x5mb=100mb so does this mean it's a false reading?

[hech54]

That's what I was just thinking because even if the cd contained 20 songs that would equal 20x5mb=100mb so does this mean it's a false reading?

Yes....and you should try harder with ISOBuster. Read some guides. It's not the easiest program to get your head around.

[mikehende]

I don't know what you mean by "try harder" with isobuster? The software simply is not reading the cd

[Cornucopia]

If it was not reading the CD, it would throw a Read Error! warning (or a HUGE series of them). If it shows SOMETHING after a bit of chugging around, it's because there was either something non-standard with the disc to begin with, or it is now corrupted. BTW, corruption on a disc does NOT have to be visible to the naked eye for it to be debilitating.

Give us a screenshot of its output (including both left & right panels)...

Scott

[mikehende]

Isobuster did not show anything at all so nothing to see in it's interface.

[Cornucopia]

What does it show? "No media present"? A disc Icon with nothing branching from it?
If the latter, right click it the icon and do a sector view, as well as a "perform a surface scan". If you get nothing from it then, I would say that either something else on your PC is interfering with ISOBuster's interaction with the disc, or the disc is so corrupted that it's showing NO media left.

I say that because I've run HUNDREDS of discs through it, and have never once come up with a disc that didn't have SOMETHING to show for it. I do recommend the paid version (as there are additional tools at your disposal).

I've had discs in the past that were freebies from a dub house I worked at - they were cast-off promo CDRs that had been pre-printed with a couple of typos and so were unusable in their eyes. Well, EVERY ONE of those freebies were made using substandard processes and so they began "disintegrating" after a short period of time.
In ISOBuster, at first they would be fine. Then later, they would show up as corrupted with many recoverable sectors/files, but some unrecoverable. Then later, they would show up as nearly all unrecoverable, then finally, they wouldn't show up with readable sectors at all - just read errors on the surface scan. But NEVER nothing.

edit: ISOBuster has no trouble reading the various UDF, Mac, RockRidge, or other filesystems besides ISO9660, and fully understands packet-writing and unfinalized discs (though you may need to adjust a setting or two to view all possibilities).

Scott

BTW, are these pressed/replicated discs, or burned/duplicated discs?

[Ai Haibara]

Yeah, I was about to ask whether they were commercial (audio?) CDs, or audio/data CDs someone else had created for you, too.

[mikehende]

When I load the cd, all that appears in the left pane shows "blank cd", when I right click on it, all options are shaded out, this is a mixed music cd I had purchased from a guy selling on the street.

[Cornucopia]

Quoted from ISOBuster's Helpfile (bold added by ME):

Using IsoBuster is in fact easy. You just need to know a few things :

• Scanning a CD / DVD / Image File layout and File-System(s) is done automatically, once the device is selected.
• Actions are triggered by selecting an object (track, file, directory, ...) and clicking the right mouse button.
• IsoBuster is many tools in one, don't let it confuse you. E.g. don't go creating an image file if you just want to recover data etc.

When you select a drive or an image file, the CD / DVD in the drive or the image file will be scanned automatically. The content will be listed immediately, the session(s), track(s) and file-systems.

If you don't see anything, it means IsoBuster could not detect anything or the device is still mounting the media. In case of the latter, wait till the media is mounted properly by the drive. In most cases you can monitor this by looking at the LED behavior of your CD/DVD/BD/HD DVD drive. There are cases when the CD / DVD / BD / HD DVD reader will not mount media anymore because it is beyond recognition ! If the drive doesn't mount the media, IsoBuster will of course also not be able to access the media.

Ok, so we know that it's a burned CD. Could be -R, could be -RW. If it's -RW, it's possible the disc(s) somehow got erased. If it's -R, it's possible the dye was volatile enough (with exposure, etc) where the data "disappeared" like my crappy freebie discs, to the point where it can't even mount the disc. Who knows what quality of media this was...

Since you seemed to get something with MPDR, why not try to "recover" at least that 1GB - just to see what's on there. If something IS on there, you can decide whether or not to buy the full version then. BTW, If this were a standard AudioCD, there would be NO reason to go beyond 747MB, as way, way back then the longest CDR was 74minutes (not 80, or 90, or 99).

Afa ISOBuster is concerned, it could be you just need to give it time to fully mount. This has been known to sometimes take HOURS or even a DAY for extremely bad discs. Be patient, you want the data, don't you?

Let us know what you find...

Scott

p.s. If you ever get ANYTHING off of these discs, you should IMMEDIATELY make a backup onto fresh, high-quality media. And start looking at other burned discs of the same era...

p.p.s. I wouldn't hurt to give an OLD Win9x pc with a GOOD CD reader (like plextor or yamaha) a crack at it...

[mikehende]

The problem with the MPDR is that I will first have to purchase because as mentioned the limit for "free" recovery is only 1gb

[Cornucopia]

That's why I mentioned 747 being a reasonable upper limit. There should be no need for it to be looking at anything larger than that (at least on old CD media).

Scott

[aedipuss]

mpdr is just wrong. there is absolutely no way any type of "cd" has 2.56GB of data on it, and filesystems report disc data in "B" Bytes not bits so it's physically impossible. i wouldn't count on it recovering anything.