3

A friend handed my a DVD supposedly having a backup of his kids photos and videos. The DVD shows as empty in Windows 7, but I can see that data was burned in the disk.

Is there a utility to explore all the disk and try to restore the data available?

I've searched but the most of the tools focus on scratched disk. Not the problem here.

Improve this question
6
  • It would really help to know what software he used to make the backup. The format may be proprietary and need special software to read.
    – Chris S
    Dec 18, 2011 at 16:11
  • @ChrisS: ok, I'll find out (probably tomorrow because was copied in a PC shop, ironically)
    – Eduardo Molteni
    Dec 18, 2011 at 16:18
  • what do you mean, you can "see" data was burned to the disc?
    – wizlog
    Dec 18, 2011 at 16:21
  • @ChrisS: Aren't all files burned in a standard way so all drives can read them?
    – Eduardo Molteni
    Dec 18, 2011 at 16:23
  • @wizlog: The different shade in the tracks...
    – Eduardo Molteni
    Dec 18, 2011 at 16:24

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
2

I'm sure that somewhere there is free software that would do this for you, however as of now, I can't find any.

DiskInternals CD & DVD Recovery offers a trial that allows you to test for files on your CD/DVD. You may need to purchase the program to receive full functionality.

(if it doesn't work, you can try Discgetor.)

Additionally, it may help if you installed the backup utility on the computer that shows a blank disc.

You didn't specify an operating system in your question, so I'll assume your using Windows. If you burned the disc on Windows 7, it might not be readable in versions of pre Windows XP. )

Improve this answer
2
  • IsoBuster didn't find any files. I'm having more luck with Disk Internals Cd & Dvd Recovery. Developing...
    – Eduardo Molteni
    Dec 18, 2011 at 17:41
  • @EduardoMolteni OK, I edited my answer to better address your actions.
    – wizlog
    Dec 18, 2011 at 17:53
1

I recover the files using Disk Internals Cd & Dvd Recovery It's $40, but wasn't on me :)

Improve this answer
0

The fact that you can see physically burned sectors on the DVD that are not present when you mount the media, could be due to a previous burned session, already closed and not visible now, or to data deliberately placed in non-indexed sectors, or simply the result of a bad burn. Some security options allowed to reburn deleted sector with data when you delete data from a CD/DVD.

Under Linux there are many tools, some of which are also available in Windows.
You can read many pages on internet; among the others e.g. from askubuntu answers~[1,2] you can read:

  • dvdisaster

    Really good if you like graphical tools. It's tricky to use with commercial movie dvd's, though. You'll have to open the dvd in Totem once first to "authenticate" the drive. After that, it works well.

  • ddrescue from command line.
  • foremost or testdisk to dump the image of the disk and from it to extract the files...
  • safecopy

    safecopy is a data recovery tool which tries to extract as much data as possible from a problematic (i.e. damaged sectors) source - like floppy drives, hard disk partitions, CDs, tape devices, ..., where other tools like dd would fail due to I/O errors.

Even some graphical tool may be able to read the previous session, you can try with the evolving K3b or with others. Under Windows Nero was able to dump the entire media byte by byte, and possibly to browse previous sessions.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .