So how many coasters do you have that started life as critical backup CD/DVD’s? Or the CD/DVD’s that you entrusted to store a lifetime of photo memories? Well if you’re like most of us, you may have more than one.
As a long term file storage medium, CD/DVD’s are, in effect, all-purpose, durable and generally inexpensive. The difficulty in relying on this storage medium however is they aren’t always as reliable as we sometimes seem to think.
An internet friend, a very competent Techno Geek - was telling me just this week, “an older system of mine decided that it would not boot into Windows (XP), and then—with a determination that would make a Missouri mule proud—resisted all resuscitation efforts. No problem (I said to myself.. it was still early in the day). I’ll just re-mount a “ghost image” backup from the DVD’s I made last week.”
He went on to say “one of the 4 DVD’s was “corrupted”. As in “unreadable”. As in…that backup is totally useless to me. Four wasted discs. Caught me a little off guard, too….I pay extra to buy the best blanks, and the company to which I am alluding has never given me a “bad burn” before.”
So you’re not alone in turning what you may consider to be, unusable/unreadable CD/DVD’s into expensive coasters. But there is a solution that can help you to recover damaged data that you may have considered unrecoverable. Stepping into the picture is CD Recovery Toolbox, a free CD/DVD file recovery tool.
This small free application was designed to recover damaged files on CD, DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-Ray disks. It can recover files that have been lost as a result of physical damage to the disk (scratches, chips, and so on), or as a result of a bad or inaccurate recording.
The program scans damaged CD and DVD disks and produces a listing of files and folders on the media which it can recover. Be aware however that, depending on the degree of damage, there may be files that the application cannot recover.
In testing this product’s file recovery ability on a severely scratched and chipped disk, I’m happy to say that it recovered 934 files out of a total of 936, that Windows could not read, and it did this in less than 2 minutes.
Data recovery is generally a complex process but even beginners will have an easy time with this application based on it’s step-by step wizard, which makes the use of the tool very simple and convenient.
Quick facts:
- Recovers files/folders from CD and DVD’s
- Recovers files larger than 4 GB
- Detects lack of free space on the designated storage hard drive
Requirements: Windows 98/ME/2K/XP/2K3/Vista
Do you know of any similar programs that you use to rescue files from scratched and damaged disks? Share your recommendations in the comments!
(By) Bill Mullins is a Blogger who writes on Internet Security, System Tools, Free Software, and provides downloads links. Check out his Blog at Tech Thoughts
More from MakeUseOf.com …
- MakeUseOf Directory : Read about up-to 5 truly useful web apps on a daily basis.
- MakeUseOf ‘Geeky Fun’: - Fun Geeky Pics, Cartoons and Videos.
Tags:
cd-dvd tools,
file recovery,
repair Related posts
