Retrieving data from corrupt CD-R media - any applications?

Hi Kappy,

Thanks for the quick response!

I actually was curious whether Data Rescue II could handle optical media (in addition to the flash card recovery they emphasize on their website). I might take the plunge and purchase this one (the other program was MediaRecover, but the website doesn't specify recovery from optical media) later tonight.

I actually did manage to extract a good chunk of the files off of the disc one by one, to prepare them for a new backup burn.

The I/O errors start occurring when you attempt to copy files at a certain point. (to clarify: the disc was a data disc originally burned with View settings as Detail, so they are sorted alphabetically - the problem occurs at "S", but things are fine to copy again at "U")

Neither single copy nor multiple copy works once reaching the "S" stage. But the files themselves all seem to be in tact. My G3 clamshell was actually able to play a few of the "S" audio files in question using Quicktime Player, but sadly would not copy or export the data.

I actually did try copying the problematic data to three different hard drives (iMac, G3 iBook, eMac G4) plus a USB flash drive, an SD card, and a Zip disk, but all to no avail.

Thanks for the info! I'll try it out tonight.

Steve

Kappy - Data Rescue II worked like a charm! Thanks so much!

I tested the demo out on one of the problematic files, one under 5 MB.

After registering the software, it's now going to town on the other files... as I sit here and listen to that first rescued song as I type this.

Thanks again!

Steve

However, if the files themselves are truly corrupted
(garbage data) then you won't be able to recover
anything usable.

Interesting that you mentioned this, Kappy...

Data Rescue II was able to extract everything from that troublesome spot off of the disc, but once done, each file's icon had a red label assigned to it in the Finder and subsequently would not open in various multimedia applications. (QuickTime, iTunes, VLC, etc.)

Is it possible that these corrupt files caused the I/O errors?

Anyhow, thanks again for pointing me to Data Rescue - although these particular files are officially dead, it does look like a great handy utility for other issues.

Steve


iMac Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.16 GHz, 2 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.10) iBook G3 366 MHz (graphite clamshell), 576 MB RAM, Mac OS X 10.3.9

Hi Malcolm,

Unfortunately, yes I had tried all of that. Tried it in my iBook (clamshell) as well as the old eMac, but all machines would report I/O errors when trying to read and/or extract from that section of the disc.

After taking Kappy's advice and purchasing Data Rescue II, it was able to extract the files from the disc, but unfortunately they were unreadable.

This particular CD-R was just over 7 years old. I remember burning it under OS 9 at my college's digital media lab back in the day, using an early version of Toast. (Mac only readable) Last time I remember using those troublesome files was back in 2003, when I had gotten my eMac. Perfect back then.

Windows XP wouldn't read it; tried it out in my brother's laptop but not even readable.

But the fact that other files on the same disc were readable leads me to believe that somehow these files became corrupted on optical media sometime in the past 4 years.

But now I'm learning to cope with my loss... 🙂

I've since retrieved whatever I could off of the old disc (about 85% of the original content) and reburned it. Different brand this time, plus a 700 MB disc.

(as opposed to the original 650 MB, which I'm not even sure they make anymore...)

Thanks,
Steve


iMac Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.16 GHz, 2 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.10) iBook G3 366 MHz (graphite clamshell), 576 MB RAM, Mac OS X 10.3.9