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#132537 01/19/07 08:40 PM
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 8,443
Likes: 3
Trumpy Offline OP
Member
Folks,
I bought some CD-Rom disks last year for storing files for the local Ham club.
The company that I buy all my computer gear from, didn't have any of the usual Imation disks so they said they could provide me with some Spin-X brand CD's at the same price and that they were of the same quality.
I filled these disks up with a lot of information for the club and as the Secretary, most of the inwards and outwards correspondence went on these disks.
I never thought any more about it, until today.
I went to have a look at the December Newsletter sent to us from another club on one of the CD's.
I was met with the following prompt window:

Windows cannot open this file,there may be a fault with the disk, please insert another disk and try again.

I tried the other 5 disks that were of the same order, same thing, no go.
I was absolutely mortified,
I have added files to these CD's one at a time as they have been recieved, without any warnings at all.
Why has this happened all of a sudden?.
I even asked the Treasurer to try them out in his computer, same thing occurred.
I always thought that CD-R's were a reasonably secure form of storage, I'm not so sure about that idea now.
Is there any way that I can salvage the information off of these disks?.
Your thoughts on using CD-R disks?.

#132538 01/19/07 11:49 PM
Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 9,923
Likes: 32
G
Member
Did you "format" these disks? Are you using the same software they were created with?
Some software will lure you into writing a proprietary format on the disk and that is the only thing that will read them. It does allow you to use a CDR like a disk drive but it reduces your usefullness.


Greg Fretwell
#132539 01/24/07 12:48 AM
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 2,723
Likes: 1
Broom Pusher and
Member
I agree with Greg - it sounds like you may have used a "Third Party" (Not Windows XP Default) Copy Application, and it archived data on the CD according to it's own Utility.

Ultimately, you would need to use that Archiving Application's Utility to view the Data on the CD.

If you used the CD Utility which is Windows XP's Packaged (comes with Windows XP), maybe there were issues with the Disks, and / or Data, at time of Copy (Write to CD) - but Windows did not display any error dialog boxes.???

If CD-RW, there may be issues with the Data strings (especially if Data was written in several different sessions), which is confusing Windows as the OS views the FAT.

Also, if compiling Data to CD-RW with a Third Party Application, Windows will stare blankly at the Disk - even though there is proper Data on it (just needs to be run through the same Utility).

Most of the better Archiving Applications will set a "Self-Installing" Data Reading Utility on the Disk, which will prompt for user input to install the utility, once the Disk is accessed.

If you do use an Archiving Application (as opposed to the Windows XP Standard App.), be sure to select "Read On All PCs" option.

Questions / Comments:
1: Do you Archive (Copy Data to CD) by first selecting the data, then performing a "Send To" action (Send To CD-R)?
or via Copy / Paste action?

2: Is the Disk Media CD-R, CD-RW or DVD-R?

3: Make sure not to use Audio type CD Media for Data file Archiving.

4: Have you been successful with other CD Archives?

5: Did you try reading the Data after the Copy was complete?

6: Do you reboot your machine prior to Archiving?

7: Have you tried to read the CDs after a recent Reboot?

8: Can you try to read the CD Data on another PC?

Scott35


Scott " 35 " Thompson
Just Say NO To Green Eggs And Ham!
#132540 01/24/07 12:55 AM
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 276
T
Member
ok Trumpy, you are a linux guy, so here goes, and I say in advance that this is a long, long shot but it might work. It has saved me in similar situations before:


first put the CD in the drive,
then:

dd if=/dev/cdrom of=~/cd.iso

then:

mount -o loop -t iso9660 ~/cd.iso /some/directory/


then:

cd /some/directory/

and

ls -l

and see what you have...

basically this makes a direct bit for bit copy of the CD named "cd.iso" on your hard drive, that you can mount like it was a filesystem or a cd drive in its own right, and browse/copy/whatever with all the files contained therein..

to unmount this, type

umount /some/dir


Hope it helps! it has saved me a few times, but a little luck is involved with this trick as well..

#132541 01/27/07 08:54 AM
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 8,443
Likes: 3
Trumpy Offline OP
Member
Scott35,
Thanks for the reply.
In reply to your questions:
Q1: I save to drive E here (it's a laptop).
Q2: The media is CD-R.
Quote
Make sure not to use Audio type CD Media for Data file Archiving.
Is this some sort of a wind-up?.
Even I know that.
Q4: Yes, this is what I can't understand, I've put a LOT of small files onto the same disk and all of a sudden it gives up or can't be read.
Q5: Yes and it worked perfectly, all I had on the disks were PDF files.
Q6:No I do not reboot prior to Archiving, all I am simply doing is writing PDF files to a CD-R disk.
Q7:Yes and they worked OK, all of a sudden the drive would not read them.
Q8:I mentioned that in my original post.

Scott,
Sorry if I sound annoyed, believe me it isn't at you, but CD's are cheap enough, but why should we bother with them if they are going to do this?.
I was under the impression that CD's were used for long-term storage.
As far as the 3rd party thing goes, it's only Windows CD Wizard that writes to the actual disk here.
If this keeps up, this laptop is going Linux as well!!. [Linked Image]

#132542 01/28/07 04:36 AM
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 8,443
Likes: 3
Trumpy Offline OP
Member
Scott,
Sorry to blow you off like that,
I realise that you were only trying to help.
Such rudeness on my part. [Linked Image]
BTW, I've lost your e-mail address again could you please send me an e-mail?.

#132543 02/20/07 11:44 AM
Joined: May 2004
Posts: 364
G
Member
Dear Mike,

I guess your drive is disabled. I don`t know how to do that, but mine at the company is also disabled, therefore it never tells me "I`m not allowed to write cd`s" but keep on trying, and once it did write a cd, then never again.
After that they told me the drives and usb ports are disabled.


The world is full of beauty if the heart is full of love
Trumpy #165744 07/04/07 04:08 PM
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 177
B
Member
Try Isobuster, avery good program for recovering data from cd


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