Recovery Software for DirectCD CDRs?

I have written about this problem before. I have a large stack of
CDRs written with DirectCD. WindowsXP cannot read them at all, either
by itself or with the Roxio UDF reader installed.

I have a Windows 98 computer with DirectCD installed and have had
limited success reading some of these discs.

At first the only drive that would read them, out of several that I
tried, was a Hewlet Packard DVD burner. It would very slowly read the
disc and copy it to the hard drive, taking about 45 minutes per disc.
The computer would freeze aftertwo or three discs and need to be
rebooted.

That worked for about six discs and then the process burned out the
DVD burner which now does not do anything at all.

I switched to a TDK 32x CD burner. With this drive I can copy parts
of some of the discs, but when it gets to a part that is unreadable it
blue screens the computer. The drive is less and less successful
after playing around with three discs and I'm afraid DirectCD is
burning this one out as well.

I recall somebody writing about how she used some kind of recovery
software to save the files on her discs when the Roxio software failed
her.

What recovery software is there for these discs? I don't care how
long it takes, I would just like to be able to leave it to copy the
disc without me needing to sit there and continually reboot the
computer.

A Person wrote:
I have written about this problem before. I have a large stack of
CDRs written with DirectCD. WindowsXP cannot read them at all, either
by itself or with the Roxio UDF reader installed.

I'm fairly certain I've replied to the query - but in another group.
Unfortunately, there are answers needed from you before we can provide a
reasonable response.

1. Even though you write "CDR", do you mean erasables (CD-RW)? There is
a fundamental difference between them in packet writing.

The rest assumes that you mean what you say - write-once media.

2. Did you close the session? UDF 1.5 or ISO 9660 Level 3?

3. Did you close the disc?

4. What packet software (if any) is on the machine that's giving you
trouble?

As for recovering data from them, it may be possible. Again, assuming
that you are not misleading us about the medium, the best tool is CD/DVD
Diagnostic (or its big brother, Inspector) from Arrowkey. However,
you'll have a lot of work to do to interpret the dump that is likely to
be the best you can get.

Your symptoms appear to be badly written or decayed data. If the disc
won't read in a drive, its data cannot be retrieved.

Incidentally, the faults you're describing have nothing to do with the
packet software you use and a lot to do with hardware, even more with media.

Mike
--

http://www.mrichter.com/

.. --------------------------------------
Mike Richter, were you born with
"Scam Artist" emblazoned on your face?
--------------------------------------
(Mike Richter, any Material Connection w/ Roxio?)

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...mindspring.com
(Messages 10, 12 -- 34, 54 -- 69)

( No pipsqueaks have been able to prove ANY of the above is a libel )
( -- despite Mikey's supposed to have proof of misquotes!!! )


A Person wrote:

I have written about this problem before. I have a large stack of
CDRs written with DirectCD. WindowsXP cannot read them at all, either
by itself or with the Roxio UDF reader installed.

I have a Windows 98 computer with DirectCD installed and have had
limited success reading some of these discs.

At first the only drive that would read them, out of several that I
tried, was a Hewlet Packard DVD burner. It would very slowly read the
disc and copy it to the hard drive, taking about 45 minutes per disc.
The computer would freeze aftertwo or three discs and need to be
rebooted.

That worked for about six discs and then the process burned out the
DVD burner which now does not do anything at all.

I switched to a TDK 32x CD burner. With this drive I can copy parts
of some of the discs, but when it gets to a part that is unreadable it
blue screens the computer. The drive is less and less successful
after playing around with three discs and I'm afraid DirectCD is
burning this one out as well.

I recall somebody writing about how she used some kind of recovery
software to save the files on her discs when the Roxio software failed
her.

What recovery software is there for these discs? I don't care how
long it takes, I would just like to be able to leave it to copy the
disc without me needing to sit there and continually reboot the
computer.

Check out these:

IsoBuster
http://www.IsoBuster.com/
http://users.pandora.be/smart.projects/start2.htm

CD/DVD Diagnostic
http://www.arrowkey.com/cd-r_diagnostic.html

CDRoller
http://www.cdroller.com/

CD Data Rescue
http://www.naltech.com/

BadCopy Pro
http://www.jufsoft.com/

FixUDF
http://www.softarch.com/us/products/...FSellpage.html

On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 22:03:53 -0800, Mike Richter
wrote:

A Person wrote:
I have written about this problem before. I have a large stack of
CDRs written with DirectCD. WindowsXP cannot read them at all, either
by itself or with the Roxio UDF reader installed.

I'm fairly certain I've replied to the query - but in another group.
Unfortunately, there are answers needed from you before we can provide a
reasonable response.

1. Even though you write "CDR", do you mean erasables (CD-RW)? There is
a fundamental difference between them in packet writing.

CDR, not RW

The rest assumes that you mean what you say - write-once media.

2. Did you close the session? UDF 1.5 or ISO 9660 Level 3?

3. Did you close the disc?

These were DirectCD written discs made with version 2.5d most likely.
Some were finalized, some not. I am not sure what method was used to
finalize. If there were options, what were the options?


4. What packet software (if any) is on the machine that's giving you
trouble?

I am pretty sure the computer only has DirectCD on it. There is also
Nero 5 on that computer, but I don't think I ever installed InCD
because I never intended to use it and was wary of conflicts with
DirectCD. I probably will remove all of the Nero software to be safe,
but I doubt if that is the problem.


As for recovering data from them, it may be possible. Again, assuming
that you are not misleading us about the medium, the best tool is CD/DVD
Diagnostic (or its big brother, Inspector) from Arrowkey. However,
you'll have a lot of work to do to interpret the dump that is likely to
be the best you can get.

Your symptoms appear to be badly written or decayed data. If the disc
won't read in a drive, its data cannot be retrieved.

Incidentally, the faults you're describing have nothing to do with the
packet software you use and a lot to do with hardware, even more with media.

Then why do other discs written without packet writing, at about the
same time, with the same media, on the same hardware not have
problems? Because the only discs I am having any trouble with are the
ones burned with DirectCD I will have to conclude it is the method and
not the media or hardware.

Thanks for the reply.

On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 06:10:49 GMT, smh wrote:


Check out these:

IsoBuster
http://www.IsoBuster.com/
http://users.pandora.be/smart.projects/start2.htm

CD/DVD Diagnostic
http://www.arrowkey.com/cd-r_diagnostic.html

CDRoller
http://www.cdroller.com/

CD Data Rescue
http://www.naltech.com/

BadCopy Pro
http://www.jufsoft.com/

FixUDF
http://www.softarch.com/us/products/...FSellpage.html

Thanks for the links.

A Person wrote:
On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 22:03:53 -0800, Mike Richter
wrote:


A Person wrote:



The rest assumes that you mean what you say - write-once media.

2. Did you close the session? UDF 1.5 or ISO 9660 Level 3?

3. Did you close the disc?


These were DirectCD written discs made with version 2.5d most likely.
Some were finalized, some not. I am not sure what method was used
to finalize. If there were options, what were the options?

The options were not available in 2.5; it could only close a session to
Level 3. That's one reason it's important to specify the version of your
software when asking the question.

You still did not say whether the sessions were closed (finalized). That
is far more important than whether you closed the disc. An open session
can only be read on a writer in a system with UDF installed; a closed
session can be read on any machine with Level 3 support - IIRC, that's
Win98 and above, NT4 and above, OS 9 and above.


4. What packet software (if any) is on the machine that's giving
you trouble?


I am pretty sure the computer only has DirectCD on it. There is also
Nero 5 on that computer, but I don't think I ever installed InCD
because I never intended to use it and was wary of conflicts with
DirectCD. I probably will remove all of the Nero software to be
safe, but I doubt if that is the problem.

Nero will not interfere. Again, the version of DCD is critical and I'm
not about to enumerate the factors until you say which version is there.
If it is the same as that with which the discs were written, then that
is not a factor; the problem is with the errors in reading the discs
back - again, whether they were badly written or they decayed.

Your symptoms appear to be badly written or decayed data. If the
disc won't read in a drive, its data cannot be retrieved.

Incidentally, the faults you're describing have nothing to do with
the packet software you use and a lot to do with hardware, even
more with media.


Then why do other discs written without packet writing, at about the
same time, with the same media, on the same hardware not have
problems? Because the only discs I am having any trouble with are
the ones burned with DirectCD I will have to conclude it is the
method and not the media or hardware.

Instead of guessing, you can measure the error rate of the recording
using CD/DVD Diagnostic. (Other tools are not likely to handle packet
writing.) There are too many possible answers to your (rhetorical)
question to go into here, but all the evidence is a disc with many errors.

Please note that the slow reading and related problems have nothing to
do with the software which wrote the disc unless you are running two
different versions of DCD and trying to write with both.

Mike
--

http://www.mrichter.com/

On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:26:57 -0800, Mike Richter
wrote:

A Person wrote:
On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 22:03:53 -0800, Mike Richter
wrote:


A Person wrote:



The rest assumes that you mean what you say - write-once media.

2. Did you close the session? UDF 1.5 or ISO 9660 Level 3?

3. Did you close the disc?


These were DirectCD written discs made with version 2.5d most likely.
Some were finalized, some not. I am not sure what method was used
to finalize. If there were options, what were the options?

The options were not available in 2.5; it could only close a session to
Level 3. That's one reason it's important to specify the version of your
software when asking the question.

You still did not say whether the sessions were closed (finalized). That
is far more important than whether you closed the disc. An open session
can only be read on a writer in a system with UDF installed; a closed
session can be read on any machine with Level 3 support - IIRC, that's
Win98 and above, NT4 and above, OS 9 and above.

I never closed any sessions. I would add to a disc until it was
pretty full, and then I would either finalize the disc, or not.



4. What packet software (if any) is on the machine that's giving
you trouble?


I am pretty sure the computer only has DirectCD on it. There is also
Nero 5 on that computer, but I don't think I ever installed InCD
because I never intended to use it and was wary of conflicts with
DirectCD. I probably will remove all of the Nero software to be
safe, but I doubt if that is the problem.

Nero will not interfere. Again, the version of DCD is critical and I'm
not about to enumerate the factors until you say which version is there.
If it is the same as that with which the discs were written, then that
is not a factor; the problem is with the errors in reading the discs
back - again, whether they were badly written or they decayed.

So you are saying that I would be better off to install the original
software? I probably still have it somewhere.


Your symptoms appear to be badly written or decayed data. If the
disc won't read in a drive, its data cannot be retrieved.

Incidentally, the faults you're describing have nothing to do with
the packet software you use and a lot to do with hardware, even
more with media.


Then why do other discs written without packet writing, at about the
same time, with the same media, on the same hardware not have
problems? Because the only discs I am having any trouble with are
the ones burned with DirectCD I will have to conclude it is the
method and not the media or hardware.

Instead of guessing, you can measure the error rate of the recording
using CD/DVD Diagnostic. (Other tools are not likely to handle packet
writing.) There are too many possible answers to your (rhetorical)
question to go into here, but all the evidence is a disc with many errors.

Please note that the slow reading and related problems have nothing to
do with the software which wrote the disc unless you are running two
different versions of DCD and trying to write with both.

Mike

.. --------------------------------------
Mike Richter, were you born with
"Scam Artist" emblazoned on your face?
--------------------------------------
(Mike Richter, any Material Connection w/ Roxio?)

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...mindspring.com
(Messages 10, 12 -- 34, 54 -- 69)

( No pipsqueaks have been able to prove ANY of the above is a libel )
( -- despite Mikey's supposed to have proof of misquotes!!! )


A Person wrote:

Mike Richter (Friggin' Scum) spewed:

You still did not say whether the sessions were closed (finalized). That
is far more important than whether you closed the disc. An open session
can only be read on a writer in a system with UDF installed; a closed
session can be read on any machine with Level 3 support - IIRC, that's
Win98 and above, NT4 and above, OS 9 and above.

I never closed any sessions. I would add to a disc until it was
pretty full, and then I would either finalize the disc, or not.

Mikey is giving you a mumbo jumbo. All Mikey is interested in is to
weasel out DirectCD bugs. Open/Close does not give bad burns. DirectCD
bugs do.

Nero will not interfere. Again, the version of DCD is critical and I'm
not about to enumerate the factors until you say which version is there.
If it is the same as that with which the discs were written, then that
is not a factor; the problem is with the errors in reading the discs
back - again, whether they were badly written or they decayed.

So you are saying that I would be better off to install the original
software? I probably still have it somewhere.

You are better off installing the original DirectCD because DirectCD's
are NOT compatible even between themselves -- despite Mikey's claim that
DirectCD's are *FULLY* compliant with the udf standard.

Mikey's cockamamie about open/close/level3 and all that jazz is to
befuddle you - to cover up and weasel out the fact that DirectCD made
bad burns.

This post summarizes DirectCD's open/close mess:

=================================
From: "Bob M"
Subject: Roxio Easy CD Creator & Direct CD 5.0...list the bugs!
Date: 3/12/01

With DCD 3.03, when you write to a CD-R, after formatting, and remove
the disk...a dialog box comes up offering to a. Leave the Disk open b.
Temporarily close the disk so it can be read on other CD Drives (then
you are given the third option of closing the disk permanently).

In DCD 5.0, you get similar options: a. Leave the disk open. b.
Temporarily close the disk so it can be read by UDF 1.5 and c.
Temporarily close the disk so it can be read on any CD Drive (then the
permanent close option is also there).

Problem is that when you close a disk with DCD 5.0 the disk doesn't
close.

The session remains open and you can write to the disk at any time
without making re-writable. Also...DCD disks written in DCD 3.03 are
also open when reading with DCD 5.0.

This is a sloppy job of putting DCD 5.0 together.
The disks are NOT readable in other CD Drives.

Roxio needs to fix this one badly...
=================================

.. --------------------------------------
Mike Richter, were you born with
"Scam Artist" emblazoned on your face?
--------------------------------------
(Mike Richter, any Material Connection w/ Roxio?)

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...mindspring.com
(Messages 10, 12 -- 34, 54 -- 69)

( No pipsqueaks have been able to prove ANY of the above is a libel )
( -- despite Mikey's supposed to have proof of misquotes!!! )


Mike Richter (Friggin' Scum) spewed:

A Person wrote:

These were DirectCD written discs made with version 2.5d most likely.
Some were finalized, some not. I am not sure what method was used
to finalize. If there were options, what were the options?

The options were not available in 2.5; it could only close a session to
Level 3. That's one reason it's important to specify the version of your
software when asking the question.

Why is that, Mikey? You stated below, "all the evidence is a disc with
many errors." How are the disc errors affected by how the disc is
closed?

You still did not say whether the sessions were closed (finalized). That
is far more important than whether you closed the disc. An open session
can only be read on a writer in a system with UDF installed; a closed
session can be read on any machine with Level 3 support - IIRC, that's
Win98 and above, NT4 and above, OS 9 and above.

Again, how are the disc errors affected by how the disc is closed?
How are the disc errors affected by whether the disc is closed or open?

Again, the version of DCD is critical

Why is that -- when DirectCD's are *fully* compliant with the udf
standard?
======================
From: Mike Richter (Friggin' Scum)
Date: 1/5/04

There is a UDF standard. At least until recently...
only Roxio was fully compliant with it.
======================

and I'm
not about to enumerate the factors until you say which version is there.

Why should there be "factors" when DirectCD's are *fully* compliant with
the UDF standard?

If it is the same as that with which the discs were written, then that
is not a factor; the problem is with the errors in reading the discs
back - again, whether they were badly written or they decayed.

Are CD-R media also "forgetful", just like CD-RW?

Do DirectCD's write "badly"? That can explain this:

Then why do other discs written without packet writing, at about the
same time, with the same media, on the same hardware not have
problems?

Because the only discs I am having any trouble with are
the ones burned with DirectCD

Your symptoms appear to be badly written or decayed data. If the
disc won't read in a drive, its data cannot be retrieved.

Incidentally, the faults you're describing have nothing to do with
the packet software you use and a lot to do with hardware, even
more with media.

Is this caused by hardware/media, Mikey?

Windows 2000 Cannot Read CD-R Discs Created with DirectCD
(MS KB Q268094)

Then why do other discs written without packet writing, at about the
same time, with the same media, on the same hardware not have
problems? Because the only discs I am having any trouble with are
the ones burned with DirectCD I will have to conclude it is the
method and not the media or hardware.

Instead of guessing, you can measure the error rate of the recording
using CD/DVD Diagnostic. (Other tools are not likely to handle packet
writing.)

Don't know about guessing, but a certain scam artist is "weaseling".

BTW, you are one easily confused fellow, Richter.
=================================
From: smh
Date: 7/5/02
(IsoBuster added udf support in 5/02)

Mike Richter (King Troll) spewed:

ISOBuster does not handle UDF.

You are one easily confused fellow, Richter.
----------------------
From: Jack Box
Subject: Salvaging Direct CD CDs?
Date: 7/1/01

smh - You suggested CD-R Diagnostic

Mike - You added ISOBuster to the list (although smh said
it won't recognize UDF yet).
----------------------
=================================

There are too many possible answers to your (rhetorical)
question to go into here, but all the evidence is a disc with many errors.

Is this a (rhetorical) question?

Then why do other discs written without packet writing, at about the
same time, with the same media, on the same hardware not have
problems?

Because the only discs I am having any trouble with
are the ones burned with DirectCD

Please note that the slow reading and related problems have nothing to
do with the software which wrote the disc

Even if the software, DirectCD, wrote "badly"?

Is this caused by hardware/media, Mikey? Do you suppose Microsoft was
"badly" mistaken with this KB article?

Windows 2000 Cannot Read CD-R Discs Created with DirectCD
(MS KB Q268094)

unless you are running two
different versions of DCD and trying to write with both.

Again, why is that -- when DirectCD's are "fully" compliant with the udf
standard?
======================
From: Mike Richter (Friggin' Scum)
Date: 1/5/04

There is a UDF standard. At least until recently...
only Roxio was fully compliant with it.
======================

--------------------------------------
Mike Richter, were you born with
"Scam Artist" emblazoned on your face?
--------------------------------------
(Mike Richter, any Material Connection w/ Roxio?)