Many people prefer to save their important information (photos, work files and other documents) on DVDs. As such, they do not have an expiration date, but, nevertheless, due to any mechanical damage, they fail. The reasons can be the most banal:

the formation of scratches;physical deterioration;poor quality of the material from which the disk was made.

Reading and copying information in such cases is impossible, but there are ways and programs to help deal with this problem.

Two main types of possible problems should be distinguished: logical faults and surface damage, as a result of which the corrupted DVD finally stops working, if the damage is really large-scale, then it is quite difficult to do anything.

Logic Faults

This method is implemented with the support of specific software, not only in manual, but also in automated mode.

In the process of using the software, the entire information layer contained on the media is first scanned. Based on the results of the scan, based on the detected service information, a so-called "map" of the information location is formed. The "map" contains information about which particular cluster belongs to which file or directory, dimensions, names and all other characteristics of the elements of the scanned file system.

After that, the information is restored - the selected data is transferred to another medium. Recording to the original media when restoring information is not carried out.

Surface restoration

Before using any software, it is advisable to:

restore the damaged surface as far as possible;

after polishing to neutralize scratches on standard or specific equipment, a full-fledged copy is made.

Then, depending on the state of the final copy and the method of obtaining it (for example, preliminary decoding may be necessary), all the most necessary information is fetched directly.

Special programs

The utilities available today, using special mechanisms for reading information, are ultimately able to either read files or copy them (although they cannot guarantee the absolute recovery of each of them). These programs have the ability to read information from disks of any format, using direct access and bypassing the standard, inefficient in this case, tools that are typical of the Windows system.

They make many attempts to read the “corrupted” disk segment, and at the same time are able to continue reading or copying data after errors appear during the reading process. This quite often makes it possible to "pull out" the information in its primary form. In the event that such a method does not work, then the vast majority of the presented utilities are simply able to replace the “non-working” sections with zeros. Of course, in this place of the document, as a result, some kind of defect is formed. Among the utilities capable of recovering a DVD disc, one should designate:

CDCheck;

BadCopyPro;

isobuster;

recovery toolbox.

The last of them performs a full scan of failed drives and reserves the maximum possible amount of data. When recovering, Recovery ToolBox uses a significant number of various operations, and this greatly increases not only the quantity, but also the quality of the information being recovered. Thus, it will be indispensable in situations such as:

damage to the carrier of the physical plane (namely, scratches, contact with liquids);

changing the disk format with data writing utilities;

operating system error in the process of reading and accessing the media.

Some of the categories of files should have their peculiarity taken into account. For example, if we talk about a video file, then the program should be able to correctly restore the index of this file, while marking its damaged sections. This is done so that later the player can play this video file, and the lost frames are painted with a certain shade.

In addition, recovery processes are also different for different programs, and therefore, if it turned out to be impossible to restore something in one application, then most likely it will work out using another.

other methods

If the disk is not too badly damaged, you can try a method such as reducing the read speed of the disk drive. This can be effective, because at high speed the PC may simply not perceive the information that is not corrupted. You can also read a damaged disk in various drives from various manufacturers, each of which, accordingly, has its own speed.

With minimal damage, the use of a special polishing gel, which will restore the coating, can also help. It is advisable to do all this using a microfibre cloth.

Some of the drives use hardware methods to increase the efficiency of reading data not only from CDs, but also from DVDs that turn out to be damaged. These funds may include:

modified laser-type diode focusing;

disc ellipsoid compensation and much more.

If such hardware is available in the drive, in such a case, you can try to use them using the drivers or the software that was delivered with the drive.

Thus, there are methods for recovering and reading information from DVDs, however, one or another of them turns out to be more or less effective depending on the degree of damage to the file and on what kind of information was stored on it.

The disc with the most important information in a single copy is so scratched that the drive refuses to read it! Familiar situation? But so many times the thought came to copy data to backup storage ... Such cries of the soul over a disk covered with a network of scratches are familiar to many.

There is no perfection in the world, and such a seemingly reliable type of data storage as optical CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs has a rather serious weak point - sensitivity to scratches. What to do if the desired disc is already scratched?

Determining the severity of damage

I must say that scratches on optical discs can be divided into two large groups - scratches on the working surface and on the outer surface. The working surface is the one on which the disc is placed in the drive, and the outer one is the one on which the inscriptions are located. The most dangerous are scratches on the outside of the disc. If the metal layer is damaged (in this case, the scratch will be visible through and through), only one thing can be said - the disk cannot be restored.

However, defects are much more common on the working side, that is, the one with which the disk is placed down. Radial (going from the center to the edges) scratches are usually not so dangerous. Longitudinal and circular scratches are much more insidious - they are located parallel to the edge. If they are present, then the reason that the disk is not readable is most likely in them.

Other drive

Just because your drive refuses to read a disc is no reason to think that others will do the same. If there are still suitable reading devices in the house (office), then we carry the damaged item to them. If there were none nearby, go to friends, and if acquaintances are out of the access zone, go to the nearest computer club or just a store. In general, in our age of advanced technology, finding a drive is not such a big problem. The fact is that there is some probability - a disk that could not be read by one drive may well be "too tough" for another.

In addition, it may be useful to limit the speed of the drive. There are quite a few programs that can do this (for example, CDSlow). If they did not help - do not despair - perhaps it is still fixable.

We resort to folk wisdom

Information from the disk is read by means of a laser beam, which is reflected from the surface with the record. Scratches change the angle of reflection, making it impossible to read the data. But if you fill the voids with a material that transmits light in much the same way as transparent plastic, then you can get access to the disk, albeit for a short time.

To begin with, carefully wash the disk with soap (do not touch the working surface with your hands). Then we wipe: both here and in subsequent operations on the mechanical impact on the disk, we always lead from the center to the edges. Even if you are not lucky to inflict a scratch at the same time, then it will be radial, and, accordingly, as we already know, less harmful.

After this simple procedure, many discs come back to life. If this does not happen, proceed to the direct filling of the scratches. A special paste bought in a store is best suited for this, but you can get by with improvised means.

On the Internet you can find an amusing list of what helped the hungry to read their CDs: car (or furniture) wax, paraffin wax from a candle, a combination of toothpaste with a banana (the first layer is paste, the second is banana pulp), sunflower or vaseline oil ...

I will only note that in any case, the excess substance must be removed from the disk to the maximum, and also, in the case of oil, again use the program to slow down the read speed of the disk, otherwise it will simply be pulled off the surface by centrifugal force (in general, to be honest, I would refrain from using oil).

More exotic methods include putting the disc in the freezer for 40 minutes (filling the voids with ice crystals) and putting green paint on the scratches (allegedly absorbing part of the spectrum, which improves reading).

But all these methods are not long-term, and if you understand that the disc has been read, start copying immediately. Well, if folk methods did not bring any benefit, we proceed to the next stage.

Heavy artillery

Since the scratch could not be patched up, we will remove it. For this purpose, various abrasive pastes bought in the store are most suitable. But at home, everyone will find something to do such work.

Toothpaste and furniture polish are perfect as a substitute. We put a small amount on a cotton swab and three (from the center to the edges!) Until the scratch disappears completely. In the open spaces of the network they write that you can also use female nail polish, but then you need to add a little oil to it (to be honest, I don’t fully understand how this substance will work).

The "professional" products include a special paste for polishing discs, which is occasionally found in computer stores. Paste for polishing scratches on plastic, which can be found in automotive stores, as well as GOI paste.

It is necessary to replace that in the case of both folk and professional means, polishing the media by hand is likely to take a very long time. Here again there are two ways - to buy a device for polishing disks (moreover, a serious one and not a flimsy "stray" for 300 rubles). Or use a drill with a polishing nozzle. In the end, the following option worked for me: I took a drill, as well as a polishing nozzle, similar in diameter to a CD. The nozzle was felt, so I additionally tied it with a soft cloth on top. After that, I turned on the drill, and carefully applied the GOI paste to the already rotating nozzle. And then with a hand in a signet he pressed a disc to it. The result was achieved quite quickly, but if you decide to follow in my footsteps, I recommend that you be extremely careful - the method is quite dangerous, you can “kill” the disk completely, injure your hands, etc.

There are more radical methods, they involve boiling the disc in water and then (when the plastic melts a little) smoothing out the scratches. Or smoothing them down with a hot spoon. This option requires a lot of experience and good skill. And if the information on the disk is really very important and valuable, perhaps you should not tempt fate and try to contact specialists - there are quite a lot of companies involved in data recovery from various media, often they, among other things, work with optical disks.

Also called a CD player, a device for reading information from a CD. CD-ROMs can be either internal, in which case they are stacked in bays, or external, in which case they are usually connected to the computer via a SCSI interface or a parallel port. Parallel CD-ROM players are easier to install but have a number of disadvantages: they are somewhat more expensive than internal players, they use a parallel port which means you cannot use that port for other devices such as a printer, and the parallel port itself by itself may not be fast enough to process all the data that goes through it.

There are a number of features that distinguish CD-ROM players, the most important of which is probably their speed. CD-ROM players are generally classified as single-speed or multi-speed. For example, a 4X player has access to data at four times the speed of a single-speed player. Within these groups, however, there are some variations. Also, you need to know if the CD-ROM being used can read CLV or CAV technologies. It has been reported that players that use CAV tend to be inaccurate because they only refer to the speed of access to external tracks. Reading of internal tracks is carried out more slowly.

As a rule, two more precise disk sizes are used - access time and data transfer rate. Access time is a measure of how long, on average, it takes on disk to access some information. The baud rate determines how much data can be read and sent to a computer per second.

You must consider how the player connects to the computer. Many CD-ROMs connect through the IDE and Enhanced IDE interface that the hard drive uses. Other CDs are connected via the SCSI bus. If your computer does not already contain such an interface, you must install third parties to use a proprietary interface.

What is CD-ROM?

Compact disc. A standard medium for storing digital data in a machine-readable form accessible by laser-based reading. The discs are 4-3/4" in diameter. Disks are faster and more accurate than magnetic tapes for data storage. Faster because although the data is usually written sequentially to a CD within each track, the tracks themselves are directly accessible. This means that tracks can be accessed and played in any order. More accurate because data is written directly to binary; magnetic tapes require data to be converted to analog form. In addition, extraneous noise (tape hiss) associated with magnetic tape is absent from CDs.

If you've ever accidentally deleted the information you need from a CD-RW disc, then you know how frustrating it is trying to get everything back. CD-RW discs are rewritable, meaning you can load and save, delete and modify files multiple times. If you have deleted some files, you can trace and restore them using data recovery programs. These programs use a system wizard to make it easier to recover files from your CD-RW.

The first thing you should remember is never store important information on disks. A cracked or coffee-drenched disc, scratched, is simply thrown away by many. Even your photos from the wedding, or the first steps of your baby, all this is important information for you. A friend asked you for a disk, you brought a disk with We watched your wedding movie several times - and the disc is slowly but surely covered with scratches. Of course, a damaged movie can be downloaded again on the Internet, but personal documents can no longer be copied or found on the network.

Do not rush to throw out such discs. There are waysinformation recovery and from such disks. Not all information is possible reestablish, but some files are still possible. Invaluable files for you can be returned using programs designed specifically for information recovery Such utilities work quite simply. The operating system, when reading damaged information, as a rule, simply interrupts the copying of files. Utilities, on the contrary, can download a file from a damaged disk, even if not completely, but they can. Agree: even if some information disappears in your diploma , this is still better than a complete loss of information. And now, let's consider what programs are available for data recovery from CD/DVD discs.

BadCopy Pro. One of the most popular utilities, but it does notfree. The developers claim that their program is capable of recover almost any information from unreadable flash cards, any type CD/DVD and even hard drives. The scheme of work is quite simple: select the type of media, check the box for the recovery mode and click "Reestablish" By the way, by the way, in BadCopy Pro you can set the depth of scanning files, but then the speed of the program will decrease. After the recovery is completed, specify the folder to save the data and enjoy the result of the work.

isobuster. Pretty good program data recovery- supports almost any media and images. Pro version - works better, but you have to pay for it. In the basic set of IsoBuster Free utilities for data recovery,parktichseki includes all the functions of the Pro version, you can use the free version of the program. The most interesting thing is that IsoBuster skips some damaged sectors (at your request), but repeated "passage" of the disk is often recovers serious errors.

Creating and opening standard image files
Create and open managed image files
Scan for missing files and folders
Surface scanning on CD, DVD, BD and HD DVD discs
Multilingual support, including Russian
Extract from/to CD, DVD, BD and HD DVD discs
View sectors on CD, DVD, BD and HD DVD discs
Extracting tracks and sessions on CD, DVD, BD and HD DVD discs
Support for virtual sessions within a single physical session
Extract from (S)VCD, CD-i, ISO9660, Joliet, Rock Ridge, UDF file systems
Extraction from HFS(+), IFO / VOB file systems
Extract and Inspect Related Mac Files
Extracting Mac Binaries
Extract files found based on their signatures
Extract FAT (12 / 16 / 32) files

IsoBuster 2.8.5 release date (December 20, 2010)
Changes:
many new extensions have been added to signature detection which occurs during the search for missing files and folders. Besides a large number of different files, graphic formats and multimedia files, there is now also an accurate detection of documents such as: *. wpd, *. MSW, *. ODT *. SXW, *. SXC, *. SXI, *. SXM, *. STD, *. Ott, *. OTS, *. ODS, *. ODB, *. ODG, *. ODF, *. tons *. WB2, *. NSF *. Max and most office document formats such as *. doc *. DOCX *. xls, *. xlsx, *. PPT, *. pptx, *mdb, *. PST, *. the pub, *. VSD, *. RTF, *. dB*. one, *. WRI, *. MSI
Command line support has been improved with more new options and their combinations. In addition, start "/scan" and extract files found based on their signature "signal:" Currently, there is also an option to extract "all:" tracks/sessions/filesystems, dynamically change file and folder names, export file- sheet ("/ tree") based on a number of parameters / markers, etc. Better check all the data in the help files for more information.
Improvements:
Improved UDF search for lost files, so that in the case where there are many references to VAT tables, the program will read the tables over and over again, and so that duplicate UDF FS will no longer be listed
The latest updated EWF support, which has the status of a LibEWF project
On Windows I/O errors, there is a "OK to all" option to avoid the sum of X dialogs when multiple files are being processed
Always displays a message after forced online registration, even if it is the latest version, and even if the user has set not to show beta versions.
The Cue file has a full path and will be displayed in the Save Dialog control, not just the file name.
Ability to create lists indicating the degree of fragmented files. [Business] function.
Various other interface improvements
Corrections:
Some issues caused by some DVD IBP / IBQ images being recognized as CD so they can't be completed anymore
Some issues caused by some IBP / IBQ images with spaces appear without spaces
Fixed a very rare crash caused by UDF file system errors while scanning for missing files and folders.
md5 file was not delivered in the appropriate folder when the set was made automatically after the image file was created.
Fixed an issue that was causing the last found file to be based on its signing.
Fixed an exception error trying to sort a file.
Fixed an extremely rare compensatory bug in image files available via CUE or IBP when the first track does not start at address 0.

. This program is unique in that it not only restores data, but also writes the reasons why the disk or flash drive failed. But there is also a minus of CDCheck - it works very slowly.

In addition to the utilities listed above, there are other pretty good ones. solutions: CDRoller, Max Data Recovery, AnyReader and some others. Of the free programs that you can use to data recovery I advise you to pay attention to Recovery Toolbox for CD Free. What can this utility do? -recovers damaged files from disks: CD, DVD, HD DVD, Blu-Ray etc. With its help, you can bring back to life the necessary information lost due to mechanical damage to media (scratches, chips, various marks on their surface), as well as in case of incorrect recording. The program scans and restores almost any CDs and DVDs and finds any folders and files on the disks.

Successful recovery of your data and pleasant work!!

Installing CD-R/RW drives is now almost a system requirement for a home computer. A variety of software for recording and processing data, the relatively low cost of both types of discs in relation to the amount of stored information makes the use of CD-R/RW for storing and distributing digital information almost uncontested in relation to other media. The purpose of this article is to acquaint users with programs and possible methods for recovering information, access to which could be lost either as a result of mechanical damage to the disk, or as a result of erroneous user actions. The following programs fell under the consideration of the author of the article: CD-R Diagnostic, CDCheck and Isobuster Pro. We will consider the work of each of them on the example of a specific defect.

Scratch on the disc in the working area

To assess the capabilities of each of the programs, a really damaged mp3-collection of the Kalinov Most group was selected with a partially unreadable track of one of the songs.

CD-R Diagnostic

The first program I trusted to restore the track was CD-R Diagnostic, the demo version of which I was familiar with a year ago, and hoped that this particular program in its full version would be the best.

Although I knew exactly which track was to be restored, I decided to start from the very beginning - with a complete check of the disk for errors.

To check the contents of the disk for errors in the Tools menu, select the Error Summary item. After that, the program will offer us a choice of three types of scanning,

differing from each other in the number of sectors to be checked for readability and the possibility of recovery in case of an error in reading. Quick scan in Help is not recommended due to the small number (about 500) of randomly scanned sectors. It is also not recommended to check the recorded disc in the drive in which the recording was made.
I chose Complete scan and timed it. According to Help, the time for a full scan should have taken 20 minutes, and during this time I wanted to repeat the features of the program through Help. But during the scan, the program did not allow me to press the help button. In fact, the scan took almost half the time. The scan results were:

- without specifying the place of errors. In order to find out the specific location of the errors, it was necessary to deal with the default settings. It turns out that the default is "Do not write errors to file". We find these settings in the menu command File / Preferences ... and put the necessary checkmark:

You have to start all over again. Upon completion of the scanning process, the error data is finally available as a text file that can be opened by Notepad.

There are only errors in this file. Let's start the recovery process. To do this, by the usual click on the title of the song with the right mouse button, we call the Copy file command.

Having reached the first sector with unreadable data, the program will ask what to do next

If Accept All is selected, the program will automatically continue copying the file with the correction of unreadable data, the algorithm of which, apparently, is filling unreadable places with zeros. Recovery lasted about half an hour, after which it became possible to listen to the saved file. The program worked in the background during the recovery process, after the restoration was completed, I could not open the window with the program, although the program button was in the taskbar. Moreover, it was even in the Task Manager, but I could not close it through it either. At the same time, the second copy of the program was launched. Can this be attributed to the glitches of the CD-R Diagnostic under WinXP? May be...

CDCheck

The second program that restored this file was the program CDCheck.

We immediately note the presence of a multilingual interface. We start working on the errors again with a full test of the disk. We note to ourselves that in addition to the progress bar, the name of the file being tested is displayed, and when a broken file is found, its name with an error code is displayed in the lower window. At the end of the test, the following message is displayed:

Although the information is not as detailed as in the previous case, you cannot deny the convenience of the interface to this program. Let's now start restoring the file.

Unlike the first program, recovery options are customizable. In addition, the author of the program explains that if the sector is completely unreadable, this place will be filled with zeros. Leave the recovery options set to default and start the process. Again, we note a visual representation of the ongoing process and more complete information about errors and their correction (some unreadable sectors were completely restored, and it took 53 attempts to read it to restore one of the sectors - this surprised me a little, since I thought that under the number repetitions until the sector is marked unreadable and you need to understand the total number of reading attempts.It turns out that in the case when the sector has been read at least once, the program stubbornly wants to read this sector a second time.Therefore, I recommend setting the minimum number of repeated readings of the sector to one). To the convenience of the program, you can add the Pause button. But the most important advantage of this program is that it works with any devices in the system. Unfortunately, it does not access files bypassing the file system; it cannot access disks directly. Therefore, she will not be able to take part in the restoration of erased files.
As we remember, when CD-R Diagnostic was running, it was impossible to call the help file with the corresponding button, CDCheck allows you to do this.
The total file recovery time was almost 1 hour 35 minutes.

IsoBuster Pro 1.2

The third program that took part in the recovery of the file was IsoBuster Pro 1.2.

As in previous programs, I decided to start with a full disk test. To do this, the authors propose the Find missing UDF Files and Folders command in the right-click menu:

The program scanned quite quickly a part of the disk that did not contain errors, but when it entered the area with errors, the matter stalled. Although there is a Cancel button in the scan window,

clicking on it only resulted in the appearance of an hourglass at the cursor location if the latter was in this frame, and the words Not Responding appeared on the blue bar after the words Scanning for lost UDF data. Moreover, at that moment both Hyper Snap-DX versions 4 and 5 did not work either. When you clicked on the program close icon, the system replied that

Again, I don’t know if this is a bug or a specificity of the program under XP. In addition, when trying to drag the window while scanning and copying a file across the Desktop, it turned white. Having interrupted, thus, the protracted (or maybe frozen) scanning process, I decided to immediately proceed to restore the readability of the file. Having selected it in the file table, right-click again to call up the menu and assign "Extract"...

After assigning the path of the copy file, the extraction of the file from the disk begins. Having reached the damaged area, the program asks us the question: "What to do next?"

Mindful of how the scanning process ended, I decided to check the Skip All box (assuming that we are talking only about bad sectors) and clicked on the Skip button. My assumption turned out to be correct - judging by the behavior of the disk and the percentage of completed work, the program made several attempts to read the sector and moved on, and again there were difficulties with Hyper Snap - it was impossible to take a screenshot. Another oddity was that you could run another copy of the program and, judging by the drive coming to life, it even began to recognize it. The total file extraction time was about two hours.

results

In order to find out whether the quantity has grown into quality, we will use Sound Forge 6.0.

The diagrams refer to the same fragment of the file. The top one refers to a copy of the file restored by CDCheck, the middle one is CD-R Diagnostic, and the bottom one is IsoBuster Pro. Comments, in my opinion, are unnecessary. I will stop at one more moment. To do this, we will use WinAmp 2.80 (WinAmp 3.0, for some unknown reason, refused to play the file created by CDCheck).

Part of the file info of the original and files created by CD-R Diagnostic and IsoBuster

And here is the file info copy of the file according to CDCheck

Here is what it looks like under WinHex 10.6 SR2

Above is a code snippet of the copy of the file created by CDCheck, below - the original and the copy of the file created by CD-R Diagnostic.

Which program should be preferred? In my opinion, CDCheck should be preferred in this situation, and IsoBuster is useless in this case. Regarding CD-R Diagnostic, we can say the following, the program is, in general, solid (perhaps in its more advanced version of CD-R / DVD Diagnostic it is devoid of some of its oddities in the default settings), and in case of simultaneous damage to both TOC and the files themselves, it may well cope with the recovery. I even tried to simulate this situation - a CD-RW disc that was quickly formatted with mechanical damage at the same time. Here is this disk in the picture (the ink was subsequently washed off :))

Recovery of erroneously deleted information from a CD-RW disc

This test involved disks formatted with the program Ahead InCD 3.51.91.

Different types of information were recorded on the disks. Then one of the disks underwent a quick format, and the files were deleted from the other by system tools. I will not separate these two cases, since there is no difference between them. When performing both of these actions, only the information in the file allocation table is overwritten, the files themselves remain intact.

I immediately draw the attention of inexperienced readers to the fact that although the system promises in the form of a hint to easily and naturally restore files deleted from the RW disk from the recycle bin, this is actually not the case. Since only one file allocation table is formed when writing a CD-R/RW, in order to restore access to data, direct access to the disk is required, bypassing the file system. Let me remind you that CDCheck does not have such an opportunity, but another program, already mentioned, will come to replace it - WinHex 10.6 SR-2

And one more note. Since the work of each of the programs in this case comes with the need for exclusive ownership of disk resources, the disk to be restored must be placed in a regular drive (or with InCD uninstalled).

CD-R Diagnostic

Again, let's start with CD-R Diagnostic. Immediately upon launching the program and selecting a drive, the analysis of the disk begins, after which the contents of the disk will open before us. Like the first time, intuitive actions lead to an error

We change the window, again we try to set the Copy ...

And again we get an error message...

We open another folder, and, finally, we see the recently deleted files with our own hands.

Although Help "e says that possibly damaged files are marked with a question mark, we try to extract a file that is suspiciously similar in size to the NVIDIA driver installer. After copying it to a favorite location and renaming it from Unnamed_0018 to 41.09.exe, we run it and get the long-awaited

Carefully studying the contents of each folder on both drives, we come to the conclusion that in order not to have problems with renaming files after a possible need to restore them, it is better to use nested folders. In this case, everything happens automatically.

After copying the selected folder (the disk has undergone a quick format), we get

winhex

Now let's see what kind of help WinHex (a well-made hex editor with many useful utilities) can provide us with. It includes a Disk Editor utility that provides direct access to the contents of any disk

Let's try to use it to restore some file, the beginning and end of which are visible to the naked eye. For this purpose, a book page saved in html format is suitable.

Having selected this block, we save a copy of it as a file

and open it in Internet Explorer:

It is clear that this technique will work for any type of file, the main thing is to find its start and end identifiers. To some extent, the developers of the program have facilitated our efforts by fixing some of them in the configurable parameters of the File Recovery by Type command

IsoBuster Pro

But the IsoBuster Pro program left the most pleasant impression. After getting acquainted with its capabilities, I was also delighted, as two years ago when I got acquainted with the ZipMagic 4.0 program, which launched applications from archives without unpacking them.

So in the case of IsoBuster Pro - the program can not only copy, but also run files from disks that have undergone either Quick Format or Quick Erase. Here she is the undisputed leader. Add to this that she can work with DVDs, as well as with disk images, including, she was able to create an image of the disk that took part in this test after Quick Format without data loss (WinHex worked with this image for greater convenience ).


I will refrain from any conclusions on each of the programs, their version numbers speak for themselves. Let's hope that older releases will get rid of the current shortcomings and add in their functionality. You can download demo versions of the programs at the following addresses (current at the time of publication)

CD-R Diagnostic (1.1 MB) - link

CDCheck - link1 (750 KB), link2 (790 KB)

IsoBuster Pro (1.9 MB) - link

WinHex (680 KB) - link

Restoring access to information on quick erased CD-RWs

For the convenience of working with CD-RW discs in a number of recording programs, including Ahead Nero Burning ROM, the Quick Erase command is provided, while only the TOC area (file allocation table) is completely overwritten, while the information itself remains untouched. Let's see how easy it is to access this information. Immediately after Quick Erase, both in the Explorer window and in any program that works with disks, this disk will be indicated as empty (blank). Searching Yandex for Recovery Quick Erase CD-RW/ Recovery Quick Erase CD-RW was not particularly effective. The only information that allowed us to evaluate the possibility of such a recovery was on remsoft.newmail.ru.
A discussion of the situation with the recovery of an erased CD-RW in one of the forums finally clarified the situation with the method of recovering an erased CD-RW, and why it is possible.

Let's burn two folders under Ahead Nero Burning ROM on a previously completely erased CD-RW: the first is the examples for the VB.NET package, the second is the source materials for writing the first two parts of this article (the recording mode is not important, in any case, the files can be fully restored).

And erase the disk by selecting

I already wrote that of the programs I have reviewed that help restore access to information, only CD-R Diagnostic is able to restore access to information while damaging both the TOC and the files themselves. We have the files themselves, let's try to create, albeit damaged, TOC. To do this, we will use remsoft's advice and write an unfinished DAO session (disk-at-once) to a quick-erased CD-RW, while one of the saved Nero projects can be taken as the file to be written.

If you rushed to interrupt the session, the system will say that the disk is empty - in this case, it helps to re-burn the disc being recovered in the same mode.

On my experimental "blank", only about 150 MB were written before erasing, so I did not want to take an image of the entire disk (especially since there was unformatted space behind these 150 MB, and how IsoBuster would react to this, correcting this error, I already knew after all the experiments, when I decided to try recovery in it - when entering an unformatted zone, IsoBuster estimated the completion time of more than 1500 minutes, again it hung up and I could unload it only through the device manager).

Since for WinHex the unformatted space was an insurmountable obstacle (it was necessary to replace scrolling with direct addressing to the sector of interest to us)

Its end is easy to find. In the case of sequential placement of files with the same extension, immediately after the end of the allocated section, we will get the beginning of the next file to be restored.

We copy it to a new file and get the business card CD-R Diagnostic, which helped us this time as well.

Other files are restored in the same way.

Further, I recorded the same folders on a disk formatted for InCD. Although with InCD installed, a CD-RW disk formatted for batch work cannot in principle be erased using Ahead Nero Burning ROM - the latter will not start, under other programs installed in the system, this is possible. For example, the well-known Alcohol program allows this, and InCD will not even try to prevent this and will determine that the disk has undergone Quick Erase only when the disk is reloaded. As in the first case, we use CD-R Diagnostic to copy the contents of the disc to the hard drive and reopen it for viewing and editing in WinHex. We see that in the case of a disk formatted for InCD, there is a problem in the form of readable service marks and reserved empty space.
Attempt two - additional removal of places that occur in some places, consisting of only spaces

We can't say that it got worse - pay attention to the correct color of the part of the frame with the inscription Sound Forge. In general, when restoring large graphic files from such a disk (the file size with this picture is over 2 MB), a lot of manual work and patience will be required.

Hi all! It's a shame when the necessary files are not read from the disk, but they are not on the computer! How to be? It will not help here, only the physical will help here disk recovery, and then software. There are many devices for polishing the disc, and if they are not at hand? Therefore, today we will look at how to repair a scratched cd/dvd disc .

How to repair a scratched disc

For the sake of experiment, I took a scratched dvd disc.

To restore cd or dvd you need to dilute the toothpaste with plain water in a ratio of 50-50. We interfere qualitatively. I have green pasta with herbs, expensive infection, but what can I do)))

Now we take a napkin (preferably of course from a soft cloth) and polish the disk from the center to the edge.

ATTENTION! Movements as in the figure from the inside to the outside.

It is impossible to polish with movements in a circle! You can make the disk even worse. We polish the disc for 20 minutes, dipping a napkin into the water, thereby restoring cd drive. Press as if you were erasing a pencil with an eraser from a sheet. Watch carefully so that new dents do not appear.

Over time, we try to put less pressure on the disk and check the reading of data on our disk. This is how you can restore a completely dead disk within two hours. To avoid this in the future, use special bags and sachets so as not to remember the procedure again. disk recovery! Well, then, it's up to the programs, it's not a fact that the disk has fully recovered, so we read on!

How to restore a disk from scratches using the program

Of all the programs, I chose CD Recovery Toolbox. This program is free and simple. Downloading:

We start, select the dvd-rom in which the disk is and click next.

Choose where we will save files from the scratched disk.

Select the files or folders you want to recover. And click save.

The recovery process will begin. We are waiting for all files to be restored to the selected folder.

When all files are restored, the folder where the files were restored will open. And a recovery log will appear in the program, in which there will be a video, which files were recovered and which were not.

Now we look at which files have been recovered and which have not. If something was not restored, then we repeat the process from the beginning, only already restoring unrecovered files. This is how you can restore a scratched disk.

You can also try to repair a scratched disk with a more rigid method: