Basically I have come a cropper in as much as where I have stored quite important data on CD's dating back to as far as 2001 they seem to have gone south and the data is well and truly damaged. However, this seems to relate to wherer I have used labels on the cd's as opposed to a spontaneous degredation of the media itself. I believe this as when looking at other disks from 2001 - nowhere near so important to me and therefore NOT stored so well but without labels - they still seem fine.

If I had known about the problem with using labels sooner I would have in no way used such. I learnt the hard way with DVD's but with CD's that I had alreday labelled I thought I was ok.

Without starting up the to label or to label in this thread personally I think it is not a function of unbalancing that has occured here or say corrosive corruption of the recoprding layer by glue. Looking at the bad error scans that I have made it shows damage to the start and end of the disk mainly so I am going to assume that it is something nobody has thought of before (at least to my knowledge) and that is a contracting of the glue/label over the years pulling on the recording layer which in turn has moved the various data tracks out of alignment - pure logic would suggest this contracting would pull more on the inner and outer areas of the disk than in the middle.

Anyway the reason for this post is for some advise on data recovery. I am in a unique situation in as much as where I was paranoid in the past I, in some instances, have up to 6 Cd copies of the effected data!!!!!! Yes all 6 disks have gone South - how soul destroying is that!!!!!

In turn I have discovered numerous programmes out there that will do there damndest to recover this lost data however they cannot recover everything. In the case of a Easy CD creator jewel case design for example that I do NOT wish to lose these programs will only gain me back say 94% of the file - the rest is lost data and you guessed it - the file will not open with this missing 6%.

Now here is the $64 million question. Whilst the same file, in the example above, is duff on all of my disk copies you are not going to tell me that on each of the seperate disks the same 6- 10 odd % is effected on each one. Is there a data recovery program out there that will drag what it can off one disk say then use the file FROM ANOTHER DISK(S) to gain back the missing bytes thereby recompiling the effected file on the hard drive in full?.

All the programs just seem to run off one Cd

Please help. I already got stung by the Ritek G04/G05 dye problem - I'd like to not be stung again!!!!

Insufficient bonding of a DVD will allow air to slowly oxidize the recording and reflective layers, and this will start at the inner and outer edge first. It's not uncommon to see DVD media being damaged in this way.

If all discs have been damaged in the same way by oxidation from the inner and outer edge, then it's very possible that the same files have been damaged on the 6 discs.

There are some tools that will allow you to recover data by reading the same or identical CD/DVD media in one or more drives, building an ISO image of the disc that can then be burned to a new disc or just used in an ISO editing tool.

If your 6 CDs are identical, as in burned from the same image - not just similar copies containing the same files, then you can use one of those recovery programs to piece together whatever they can read from the identical CDs.

DVDisaster (Freeware)

IsoBuster (Shareware with a reduced functionality Freeware version)

IsoPuzzle (Freeware) [Announcement thread]

The program ISOPuzzle has been able to recover my data and I am eternally grateful for the advice.

I do stand by my observation though that the reason I have had the problem in the first place is not a function of the layers being incorrectly bonded and a spontaneous oxidization of the layers but something to do with the labels.

I just wouldn't make sense otherwise. All 6 disks had problems (which all had labels) - with a bad bonding scenario you would expect some and some. More importantly disks without labels from exactly the same manufacturer and possibly even the same spindle treated far more harshly than the problem disks and yet burned a year earlier seem relatively fine. It just doesn't compute.

One again thanks for the advice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a similar problem - with audio CDs. EAC can rip, accurately, the first 40mins of each affected disc, but grinds to a halt after that (requiring a reboot). If the disc is no longer than, say, 60 mins, I can play it on an ordinary CD Player (a Philips in my case) and use the optical output to record the tracks to Soundforge .... and hence recover. But after that, the later tracks on the disc (toward the outside) have various problems, mainly clicks, and then can;'t be played on anything.

So, similar but not exactly the same. Forgive me if this has been discussed before, but any advice?

Welcome to the forum

The first thing that comes to my mind is: what drive do you use as a ripper with EAC? Some drives are much better than others at reading damaged CDRs. Some drives will fail on the faintest physical damage like a small scratch, some others will read flawlessly discs in very poor condition. Also, if the drive reports accurately the C2 errors it encounters, EAC can rip faster and without this "halt" you experienced, at least that's the case here with my favorite rippers.

I'm not sure what's the best CDR reader on the shelves right now. I guess DrageMester will pop up and give you a sound advice as to which drive you could use to try and recover your audio. A good choice IMO would be a good CDR reader that also can report C2 "accurately" with EAC. You would then set the proper options in EAC and there you go.

Another thing is, in case your discs were stored in paper sleeves and standing on their edges, or stored horizontally in CD cases, warping can be the culprit. The good news: warping is often reversible. If you put these discs in proper hard standard CD cases, and keep them fully vertically for a week or so, they can get back to acceptable "flatness".

Last thing: look for possible smudges. Isopropyl alcohol and cotton pads can do wonders.

Good luck

*EDIT* In case of scratches: Believe me or not, I discovered (totally by chance) that home-made resurfacing was possible with simple (natural!) cotton pads, circular movements and... lots of patience. I recently recovered 5 CDs this way.

To recover the lost data from CD or DVD ROM one can try Stellar Phoenix CDROM Data Recovery software Provides recovery of data and file, lost due to unreadable, scratched, corrupt or defective CD media. Phoenix CD Data Recovery Software supports ISO9660 and Joliet file system.