DVD-ROM drive causing corrupted VOB files?

[guy24s]

Hi,
Lately I've been having problems with VOB files copied from disc to my harddrive resulting in corrupted VOB files. This will show itself in forms of weird pixel-like artifacts appearing for approx. ½ second every now and then (see end of message for a screencap). It's completely random, VOBs from some discs will have them while some other won't have any at all.
Sometimes the VOBs will instead end up skipping and having all sorts of errors. I kept thinking they are bad discs, until I copied some VOBs from a disc I had recently used on a different computer without any problems, then I started thinking the DVD drive was actually the problem. So I changed drive and now the files seem to copy without any problems. To be honest I'm very angry about it because the drive was less than 6 months old (an LG drive).
However, my problem now is that I have gone thru alot of discs the last few months and not always verifying the VOBs after copying, so there may be lots of them containing these errors. I know in the past when I needed to add various filters to some files, I did so in TMPGEnc Video Mastering Works 5 (I prefer using it because I don't have to convert anything to AVI, it will handle raw VOB files), thus the VOB would need to be re-encoded by the software and that usually removed these errors for some reason. But most VOBs that I have don't require filters and I hate to re-encode just to get rid of these errors, since there's a quality loss during re-encoding.
I have tried some programs that are supposed to fix corrupted VOB files but so far none have worked. Can someone reccomend the best softwares or whichever ones you have had most luck with, to fix errors such as the ones I described? It's mostly those weird pixels appearing for ½ second that I want rid of (usually they only appear on part of the screen). Here is a screenshot what the errors look like: http://picturepush.com/public/10298888

[DB83]

When you say 'copy' do you mean you just copy/paste from dvd-disk to HDD ?

[jman98]

I had a problem some years ago on an older PC that sounds exactly like what you are seeing. I was able to determine that the true issue was that my hard disk was corrupted. The only fix was to re-rip the DVDs in question to a sound disk drive.

I used to have a lot of hard drive corruption problems and I am going to mention this in case it is useful to you. My house has brown outs all the time. It's not unusual for electrical power to completely drop at least once a month, even if it's for one second or less. However, any interruption can be enough to cause electronics to do a hard shutdown. I really should have known better, but I was cheap and I did not use any UPS devices. I would come home from work and find my PCs (I had 2) were off due to a power outage (the clock on my microwave would be gone, so I knew I lost power during the day). I got a couple of new PCs (built one and got a loaner from work to work from home with) and I put UPS devices on both. I haven't had any more of the weird disk drive corruption problems since then. If you also are not using UPS devices then I recommend that you do so, but I'm afraid your hard drive probably has the same corruption issues my old ones did and the only fix is to replace it or add another new drive to rip to.

[guy24s]

Thanks for replying!
When I say copy I mean either just drag & drop the files (if I need the whole VOB file), or using DVD Decrypter if I just need part of one. Unfortunately both methods resulted with the same errors. (PS: the VOB's I am ripping are all from discs recorded from TV to DVD-Recorders, nothing with tricky copy protections etc that DVD Decrypter can't handle).
However, now that I have changed DVD-drive, it seems all VOBs are ripping fine, without these issues, so I think it was the DVD-drive's fault. But my real question is, all those hundreds of VOB files already ripped, that have these problems present, is there any software that might be able to remove the errors without having to re-encode?

Also thanks on the tip on possible corrupt harddrive. I have been worried about that, since one of the harddrives are making a really annoying humming sound (has been doing that for over a year), although it seems these particular errors on the VOB files were because of the DVD-drive. How much did the UPS device cost you?

[jman98]

I paid around maybe $110 I think for one UPS but I needed one that was fairly powerful. You could possibly get by with about $50-60 for one. Newegg.com has a nice selection. I went with CyberPower. I also have one of their cheaper units that I paid around $60 for and I use it in my living room and have my HDTV hooked up to it. I use it mostly for keeping the TV from taking a power surge or turning off when I lose power for one second or less as I mentioned that this tends to happen at least once a month where I live.

No, you can't remove any errors via software. You HAVE to re-rip. Sorry.