Because I'm an idiot, I burned a dvd (with Nero 5.5.10.56 - my favourite still) with important data, that is now inaccessible.

The reason: Earlier, I wanted to use the dvd and pressed 'record', then realised I made an error in the compilation and quickly cancelled the operation before (I hoped) the burning had started. Apparently however, some data was written to the dvd, but Nero didn't care about that or didn't see it and when I restarted the burn, it happily burned the disc. That is now unreadable by Windows. Note: it IS readable in Nero CDSpeed or KProbe. I just never get to see the true contents.

All programs see the disc as having only one session, and sector-viewers see the (correct) contents, but because of the faulty start to the burning process, it's not usable at all.

Alcohol120 and others have no problems making an image (probably due to the same reason it's scannable in KProbe/CDSpeed) but when I try to mount it, the image is 'not valid'.

I know that for HDDs with corrupt FATs there are utils that read the entire drive and so reconstruct the FAT or are able to copy the files that are contained on it.

But this is a DVD, and my question to you is, is there ANY way to recover the files in this compilation? Please assist


NB (When I tried to duplicate this result, I cancelled another disc very quickly, and to my surprise, Sonic RecordNow doesn't want to burn it again (good!), but Nero has no problems with that and made another unusable dvd.)

You should still have the files on your hard disk unless you deleted them before checking the DVD.

Obviously, that is not the case, or there wouldn't be such a stressful problem. Not only did I delete them, I emptied the recycle-bin and filled the harddrive to the brim, thereby totally destroying any chance of data-recovery on the harddrive.

You could try using IsoBuster on your disc and see if it can extract the first session as an ISO image.

Hi there,





I saved data to dvd. Now, when I try to open the file or image from DVD it complains saying "The type can not be defined" or just viewing square sign in Microsoft word. The names and the sizes of the files are the same as original.



Is there any way I can recover my data from DVDs?



Any help will be highly appreciated!


With regards


Mr.Plus

And that's how you treat important data?

/me Shakes head in disbelief.

As someone who is lucky enough to never have made a mistake in his life, you surely don't understand how this could have happened.

Thank you for your very helpful reply.

That was one of my hopes, but IsoBuster doesn't cut it, unfortunately. I also tried UltraISO, btw. They don't read discs at a low enough level to make anything useable of it.

The only program so far that has yielded any results, is BadCopy using mode-2. It does the same that the best harddisk recoverers also do; scan the disc from the first sector onwards and spot where there's a start-bit for a new file.

It has so far only been able to spot the smallest files, the large files (700Mb+) are still MIA.

There's mistakes and rank stupidity. Who but a complete dork would delete data before checking the backup was sound?

You are not being helpful here. This is just adding insult to injury.

DrTeeth, if you don't have anything more constructive to add, then maybe you should limit yourself to reading this thread instead of posting derogatory comments.

DeKoning!, for future reference I suggest that any important data that you want to archive off your pc is burnt to at least two different discs, preferably discs not made by the same manufacturer. This will greatly reduce the risk of something like this happening again.

You obviously missed the advice about checking the disks *before* deleting files from the hard drive , which you did not advise BTW.