Help recovering archives from CDs/DVDs.

dgo33

New member
My google skills are failing me and thought some of you smart folks here may be able to help me out.

Background:
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I have a lot of my Disney music archives on CDs and DVDs made back in the early 2000s.  I used various brands of cheap discs, wrote on some with Sharpies, put sticker labels on some, and some were just stuck in sleeves w/o any writing or labeling. (I accept that I was wrong in using cheap quality discs, putting stickers on them, writing on them, etc. So, slap my hand if you must but I already know I was in the bad.)

I'm now in the process of moving them to external discs for safer keeping (not wanting to start a discussion on pros/cons of external discs vs DVDs).

I'm on a Mac, the CDs/DVDs were recorded using Windows and Mac, in all cases passing verification.

Problem:
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So, let's say I have a disc with the following directories (each chock filled with files):

DL_MainStreet
DL_Tomorrowland
WDW_MainStreet
WDW_Tomorrowland

On the vast majority of the discs (regardless of DVD or CD, labeled or not, source burner or computer), I am unable to copy the files in the last directory.  It's always the last directory that has problems, regardless of the number of files or size of the directories.
 
I can copy the first three directories no problem.  When I go to copy WDW_Tomorrowland, I may be able to get some (1 or 2) of the files but it'll fart out long before copying all the files the directory. 

If I let give the DVD drive a break (about 30 minutes) it will sometimes go, "OHH! Those files!  I can read those now." but usually it still just goes "The Finder cannot complete the operation because some data in ..filename.. could not be read or written. (Error code -36)."

I've tried the discs on two different Mac computers (and therefore different DVD drives) and have problems reading the same files.  To complicate matters, trying to read the discs on a Windows machine, the same files are unable to be copied to a hard drive.

So, I'm at a bit of bewilderment why so many of the discs all have the same problems with accessing the files in the last directory.  And given it's the same problem on CDs and DVDs, and the fact the discs were recorded on no less than three different computers and drives, I can't pin the problem down to a misaligned laser on a burner since at least three different burners were used in the creations of the discs.  Knocking some dust of my old computer knowledge, given that it seems to be directory-related, I'm thinking somehow the portion of the disc that contains pointers to the location of the directories/files is somehow "not right" for whatever reason.

Request for help:
-------------------

Admitting I'm confused, what I really want is way to get the "unreadable" data off the discs and onto external discs.  Does anyone here have any idea what my options may be to recover the data off these discs?  Along the way, if anyone has any ideas why these even happened in the first place, that would be interesting but not nearly as interesting as a solution to the problem rather an explanation of its cause.

Has anyone had anything like this happen to them as they go back to older CDs/DVDs and try to re-archive their archives?

Hoping someone here has some helpful solutions to this seemingly odd (but very frustrating) problem.

dgo33





 
See if this helps you out. Good luck!

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/30/mac-os-tip-for-error-code-36/
 
Hey. Duh!  Using command line... why didn't i think of trying that..  Thanks for the link, though the discussion seems to be as resolved on the solution as some of the discussions we have on here....
 
Without knowing where those files really are on the disks, I may be off here, but 99.9% of the time, problems are with media.  So, I'll slap your hand in advance and say, cheap media is cheap because it's junk!  There I feel better...

No explain why/what it's happening...  Cheap disks tend to have all sorts of problems, wobble is just one of them.  I suspect what is happening is that those files are out towards the outer rim of the disk.  Way out there, the surface of the disk is flying past the read head much faster than towards the hub, and any wobble in the disk, or imperfections, etc really will have an impact on your ability to read them.  Also, CD/DVD drives build up a significant amount of heat at times, so it does make sense that at times, it's doens't work, but letting the drive sit stationary (cool down) it can be accessed.

I would say you have a couple of problems.  One the CD/DVD drive is getting too hot to reliably read unreliable information out at the outer rim of a disk.

Now, if you have labels on those disks, you need to remove them.  You didn't put them on good enough (it's not your fault) and they are probably introducing even more wobble than necessary.  I'm not sure how you're going to get them off, I'm going to guess you also got cheap labels, so the goo is probably all sorts of crystalized, etc making those labels almost permanent.  I would try first soaking them overnight in some soapy water, see how that works.  You might be to read those disks back by putting them in a very old single speed CD drive or an old 1x DVD drive.  The "wobble" might be less noticable at a slower speed and be able to pass muster.

That's about all I have...  You have now learned your lesson about cheap media, etc.  Pass the word, it seems that most poeple just didn't want to hear about the problems and that huge savings really wasn't a savings at all.

Sorry, I can't help but rub it in...   ;D But I did offer some assistance, no?

BTW - Don't rely on an external hard drive for archiving purposes, you'll hav ethe same problems.  External drives have moving parts and those moving parts will stop moving at some arbitrary point in time, even if you aren't using it.  I've found quality CDs and DVD to be great, I use Taiyo Yuden media now exclusively.  I also refresh my disks every few years, so if there is a failure, I have a backup of the backup, AND I'm not guessing if the media really is rated for 20-25 years or whatever their current claim is. 
 
I too tried to archive stuff to DVDs. Although I was not using the cheapest out there, I too had trouble with reading the discs. I found that trying different drives or lowering the speed (I think I used some kind of Nero tool for that) helped a bit. Other than that, it was a total mess.

Fortunately I did not need to use the DVDs since so far none of my Disney collection discs failed. But since the DVDs were failing I decided to go with a 4 disc RAID5 solution. Now I can loose one of the discs and still recover. The hardware is also carefully monitoring the SMART status of the discs, so I will be able to act on a disc that is turning bad, before I loose it. It is still somewhat of a risk, because loosing two discs means disaster.
 
Another thought pulls into the station: prices on USB drives have dropped dramatically, to the point where a 16GB drive is well under $100. Depending on the size of your collection, that might be a solution.
 
You might give this program  a go on your windows box:

http://www.roadkil.net/program.php?ProgramID=29

Also.. an external drive can be used but might want one with dual drives in a raid 1 configuration. this way its mirrored on both drives.
 
I archive to two different external drives (taking a chance that they won't both go together ;D ) as well as DVDs. Haven't had one go yet in over 8 years but I suppose it has to happen some time :eek:
The only suggestion I can make is to try and make a disc image (ISO) using a free tool (or a program you already have) and then reburning it on a decent DVD.
The program just may be able to read it as sometimes it's "explorer" part of the PC that stops it but another program can see it fine - rather than a disc fault oor burner problem.
Strange but it has worked (well, something similar as I didn't have Nero then) on the one occasion I had problems with a disc.
 
This brings up a question for me. I have been collecting for about a year and a half, and I have two external hard drives that I have my files stored on. The files are spilt between the drives, not copied on both drives. (I KNOW!) I wanted to start backing them up to another medium. I was going to put them on DVD's. I saw kirky mentioned Taiyo Yuden. Are these the best? Where can you get them and how much do they run? Also, are there any other good alternatives as well? I have typically used Verbatim CD's and DVD's because I had read that they were a little better than Memorex and SONY, etc. but I thought I would get the opinions of members here. You have been right about everything else so far, so I trust the advice. I have purchased some Delkin Gold Archived DVD's before from B & H Photo in New York, but they are about $40 for 30 DVD's. At that rate, it would take me forever to be able to afford to back up my 300 GB collection. I know I should buy the best that I can afford, but any suggestions?
 
I do some ameteur videography stuff, mostly little movies, commercial parodys, etc.  More to keep myself amused than anything else.  I take a lot of pride in the quality of my work, and poeple often want copies of things they performed in, I have always put them on Taiyo Yuden disks, and I have had not one person come back to me with a problem with the disks.  One person did need another, but when I saw the original, it was obviously user malfunction.

Anywho, pretty much anything you can buy in a local store is going to be junk.  Verbatim seems to be able to pull some good disks every so often and get them to retailers, but they aren't consistent.  If you want to know for sure, my rule of thumb has been, Made in Japan = Good, Made in Taiwan = Bad. 

Taiyon Yuden's can be found online, I order from supermediastore.com.  I think I paid about $0.40 each this last time.  THose are inkjet printable G02s.  I always burn them MAX 4x even though they support a little higher speed.

This last order I decided to give dual layer disks a try and ordered up some Verbatim DL, it was $50 for 20 disks, in other words, VERY EXPENSIVE!  I did a few full renders of some videos and they look and work great, but I'm not about to start using them for archival purposes.

RITEK used to be a good brand, but they turned to crap.  All the others I've seen have gone to lowest bidder, so you really never know what you're going to get.  Sometimes they are good, sometimes they are bad.  By ordering the Taiyon Yuden's online I eliminate that unknown.

Memorex has never been good as far as I can recall.  I think they rebadge CMC disks which are more of that Made in Taiwan garbage.
 
OK. That begs another question. I use CD/DVD markers made by sharpie specifically for DVD's and CD's to label basic DVD's and CD's that I burn. I use a HP Lightscribe burner for my more "fancy" stuff. I looked online at supermediastore.com, but I did not see anything for Taiyo Yuden CD's or DVD's that do lightscribe. Do you get the ones with Inkjet printable labels? I have been very skeptical about labels ever since my cousin got a DVD with a label on it stuck in his DVD player in his brand new car and the DVD player had to be removed from the car by the dealership in order to get it out. What do you recommend, kirky? I do some amatuer photoslide shows to music that I have used verbatim lightscribe DVD's for and I have never had anyone else tell me that they had a problem with them yet. Anyone else have an opinion?
 
No experience with lightscribe...  I prefer full color "labels" and I do NOT use seperate labels.  I print directly on the DVD.  In order to do that you need inkjey printable disks, and a printer capable of printing directly on CD/DVD.  I use a Canon PIXMA 4000 that I converted to be able to print on CD/DVDs.  The weight of the ink isn't going to throw off the balance, where the weight of a paper label will.

As far as CDs go, I don't recommend using anything on them.  With a DVD, the dye is actually wedged between two pieces of plastic, so writing on them won't impact anything.  With a CD, the recording surface is actually the underside of the writing surface.  I've been very leary of writing on that surface, the pressure can damage it, scratch it, etc.  I also print on CDs to hopeuflly eliminate that, but even that sounds a little dangerous.
 
I mainly write on CD's that are just copies of things anyway. I can always go back to the originals and record another. With most of my Disney CD's, I make a copy and keep the original in its jewel case in a secure place. I don't actually listen to the original, but the copy instead. I do not have a CD/DVD printer, so I don't know what my options may be. I also don't know if I want to print that much one each DVD. I doubt that it would be good to write on the printable part of the DVD, do you think so? I will use DVD's to back up everything as data DVD's anyway, so I am not really concerned about using a CD. With 300+ GB to back up, CD's would be everywhere around here. I have enough in my music collection already. I may have to back up things on my verbatim for now and look into investing in a inkjet printer for DVD's soon and then do another backup with the Taiyo Yuden DVD's later. I would rather be safe than sorry in the meantime. I did read several reviews and it looks like the Taiyo Yuden are the best in the industry as you said. I will definetly look into getting some at a later date when I have the printer. I have spent a lot of money on computer equipment this year and I am already asking hubby for an ipod this year, one of the big ones. It may have to wait until after the new year, if I have a little more cash on hand.Thanks for all the advice kirky!
 
Now I'm worried :eek:
I have always used the cheapest PC world had to offer and. quite often, stuck a label in my "best" ones. The cheapest over here are Verbatim, at the moment for CDs and Phillips for DVDs.
It makes perfect sense that, as the recording medium on a CD, is the coating on the top that, should the sticky stuff "go off, it could well lift the surface off as well (although it does offer protection from scratching it). A balance I suppose.
The best of both worlds would probably to treat them in the same way as a comic collector.
They always buy 2 copies of a comic. Seal one in a plastic bag and read the other one!
DVDs (unused) should last for a long time (even cheap ones) so make two copies. One for use and one for archive purposes. The archive one is only used if something happens to the other one.
I'd suggest that the archive one should be written on with the special pens only and left in the jewel case whilst you can do what you like with the other one.
What price our collections?
Mind you, ask me again in 30 years time ;D
 
I doubt that it would be good to write on the printable part of the DVD, do you think so?
If you write with a marker not a ball point type implement, you shouldn't have any trouble.

As far as DVD printers, yes, it's a PITA to get a label setup for each one off CD/DVD, but most of mine are really just a directory listing of some sort.  If it's a movie or other application, I will make up a "nice" label, even if it's a one off.  Printers are fairly cheap these days.  I'm not sure what printers these days will print on recordable media.  I picked up an extra PIXMA 4000 since there was a deal on them.  I know I can convert that to work should my current one fail.

And yes, I don't use originals for everyday use.  With kids especailly, I advise people to make backups of their movies.  I usually clip out the movie only as it saves space, gets the movie started sooner and I don't have to answer all the I WANT questions for all the previews.
 
Ha! Who's got a big mouth then and tempted fate. :eek: ::) :-[
After all my talk about external hard drives, one of mine died today (yes, the one that was "backup pending" - of course).
I've taken it to bits and there's nothing obvious. The light comes on (no sounds) but Code 10 - doesn't work (or on another PC). Bah, Humbug!
Off to PC World tomorrow to spend £100 to try and recover stuff.
It was my "sundry items" disc so haven't the least idea what was on it but there was around 60GB I think of things I wanted to save - and some backups of my Disney stuff.
Oh Bother - as Pooh would say.
Busy backing up on DVD now..........................................
 
Was that external drive on all the time or did you turn it on only when you needed to access it?
I'm curious because my external drives are only powered up when I need to use them; I'm hoping this way, they'll last a long(er) time ::).

Best of luck with the data recovery!
 
hehe  Sorry, I'm laughing with you, not at you!  My wife always punches me when I say, "You know I've NEVER been in a car accident!"

Anywho, I had a friend once who's drive was dead.  He gave it to me to attempt recovery, and nothing worked, not even the 'ole freezer trick.  As a last resort, I told him to pick up an EXACT SAME DRIVE from eBay and I'll see what I can do.  We found one, and what I did was take the electronic circuit board off the drive itself, put it onto his "disk", and powered the little stinker up.  GUESS WHAT!  Complete data recovery!  We then put the right board on the right drive and sold it again on eBay, but that's another story...

This MAY work if it's the circuitry that's borked and not the mechanical drive portion.  Depends on how bad you need what's on the disk.  This was for an older IDE drive, but I can't imagine it wouldn't work for any type of drive.  The key is the same model drie, down to the revision if you can, but you may be able to get away with a slightly different revision.

Hopefully that will help, I'm off to make sure I'm paid up on my car insurance...  ;D
 
I have a feeling there's  a bit more to this one. I always have my externals switch on with the PC (Except one which has an on/off button).
It sees the drive for a split second and then gives the error code and the drive vanished so I think it's the motor (the disc doesn't spin up). I've tried the usual (taking it to bits, checking the disc isn't jammed etc) and there's no movement so I suspect the motor has gone..
I "think" most of it is backed up on another HD but, of course, I can't see the file to make sure and I'm not one for keeping records like that.
I can get a new 500GB HD for half the recovery costs so I think I'll get one and wait until the "where's that file" comes up before spending any more. The data will remain safe on it (just can't access it).
Just doing a rapid backup of essential stuff at the moment to DVD in case they all decide to go on me ;D
The similar type appears to be costing (second-hand) about half the recovery cost but I haven't found the exact same one anywhere yet. I'll keep looking.
I believe it's possible to ditch the circuit board and wire it directly as a second internal HDD with the right ribbon cable. I may have a go at that as I still have a very old PC tower that I used when a charity trustee which, although deleted, will still have the confidential member's details on the HD - so can't throw it away and it won't matter if it breaks it (wonderful massive 2.5 GB HDD in that one) ;D ;D
The drive IS compatible with the OS so it may work.
Still, I hope this serves as a warning to make regular backups of things.
 
Sorry for being delayed getting back on here.. grad school, life, etc.

And I accept fully the slaps and abuse for what I've done in the past (but only on this topic!) and I even knew better at the time and still tried to outsmart myself.

I do keep my uber important files (I'm a fine art photographer) on dual 4-disk RAID systems (because if one system fails and I have to send it back to the manufacturer for repair/recovery, I still have a second RAID system with my files.) That being said, I have decided somewhere along the way that my Disney audio files can be archived on CD/DVDs and now on two separate single-disk external drives, knowing that indeed one will fail at some point.

I was in the process of "refreshing" my archives when I started running into this problem.  I'll look into using quality made DVDs in addition to external disks, because I'll admit, I like having the entire archive available in one place (external disk) rather than have to dig through sleeves of DVDs trying to figure out what I'm in the mood to listen to.

One thing about regular Sharpies, they are not archival, so if you write on the label part or plastic ring part of the disc surface, you could end up with corruption over time as the Sharpie ink degrades and shifts and possibly chemically reacting with the disk surface.  Just a word of warning.

It sounds like the consensus is keeping the archives on quality DVDs, which makes sense.  Guess it's time to find some on line and start moving what of the archives I can access onto those discs.

I haven't had a chance to follow the link someone posted for a Windows tool, sorry.  I will get to it and get back to ya on how it worked.  I do like the ideas of trying to slow down the drive and making a disc image of the disc rather than just trying to copy the contents.  I'll try those and get back to ya! (pow pow) (doing my best online Tina Fey Sarah Palin impersonation).

I did try command line copy (Unix cp command) from a noncooperative Cd and it too had problems reading the files (giving me a general I/O error) so it looks like the problem is "deeper" than a nuance of Finder.

Until then, I'll keep adding to the archives with wonderful content on here and sharing what I've downloaded..

Thanks to everyone for their help, input, insights, suggestions, and follow on conversations on this... Obviously this is something we do have to think about and encounter in our digital lives....

as i shuffle back to writing papers about articles about art....

 
dgo33 said:
And I accept fully the slaps and abuse for what I've done in the past (but only on this topic!) and I even knew better at the time and still tried to outsmart myself.
Glad I could help!  ;D

dgo33 said:
I was in the process of "refreshing" my archives when I started running into this problem.  I'll look into using quality made DVDs in addition to external disks, because I'll admit, I like having the entire archive available in one place (external disk) rather than have to dig through sleeves of DVDs trying to figure out what I'm in the mood to listen to.
Wait one cotton pickin minute!  I just wanted to point out, the backup SHOULDN'T BE USED as a playback device.  You should have a copy of your data available to whatever system(s) need access to it, and the backups are made and then safely stored away, preferrable at another location, never to be touched unless your primary has some catastrophic failure.  In that case, you pull back the backups, recover the files and send the backups offsite again.

I'm thinking you're thinking the same thing, but I wanted to point that out to anyone else.  Storing your files on an external drive isn't really considered a backup if that drive is up and running all day to serve the media.
 
Good point Kirky. I just bought a 500 GB Western Digital My Book external hard drive to store my files on. I have 3 other extrenal hard drives too. I use one of the others for downloading my torrent files to and then I am going to move them over to the new external, not to be touched again. I also plan to make DVD's as archives for backups as well too as we discussed earlier. I looked at some CD/DVD printers today. Looks like I can get a decent one for about $100. The only problem is that I currently have 2 printers and a seperate scanner, and 4 hard drives. My desk is getting a little full, if you know what I mean! I may be able to replace one of my printers with a new one though. At that price, hopefully I will be able to get one soon and get some quality DVD's to start backing up reliably soon!
 
External drives are not reliable backup items. Even if they are not used, solder will shrink and components blow through having power pushed through them due to lack of use etc. There's also the problem of pollution and even the flux used with the sollder (which is corrosive).
The files will be fine but you may have to pay a lot to access them again (I was told - using todays exchange rate - around $600-800 US. :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
I've just had a long talk with the technician at PC world about all this and he says that far too many people use external drives for this which is fine in the short term (months) but not for archive material and gets more dangerous as time passes and the drive gets older.
There is also the danger of an electrical surge (and those sockets don't protect against everything) and a dozen or so other reasons why all drives could fail/fry at the same time if connected. Even having the backups on two drives won't guarantee it if they happen to be plugged in :eek:
He said that DVDs were the only real option even though it's a lot of work to backup 500-odd gigs (and a lot of DVDs to buy at only 4.7gb per DVD), at least the DVDs (even cheap ones) have a much longer reliability date.
He's pretty sure it's the electronics on my drive that have gone (the circuit board) so may just try the freezer route followed by installing it as a second fixed HD in the PC.
Of course, you have to keep the DVDs in a fireproof/bombproof bunker and seal them in.
Or get a deposit box at Fort Knox, of course ;D
I've just bought a crate of DVDs to go with my new 500GB drive.
Now, can we keep all the files to below 4.7GB each so they fit on a DVD please :p
 
eyore said:
External drives are not reliable backup items. Even if they are not used, solder will shrink and components blow through having power pushed through them due to lack of use etc. There's also the problem of pollution and even the flux used with the sollder (which is corrosive).
The files will be fine but you may have to pay a lot to access them again (I was told - using todays exchange rate - around $600-800 US. :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

If it's mainly the electronics of a hard drive that fail versus the magnetic media itself becoming unreadable, then I'm willing to pay the cost of the data recovery.  I guess I'm bothered by the fact that the dye in burned DVDs can quietly destabilize and then <poof> my data is gone.  I'm OK with a hard drive's electronics, platter motor or head servo failing as long as those little bitty magnetic domains stay intact.

I already archive files of "casual interest" to DVD.  I figure the time and labor that would be involved in making duplicate copies (remember, "1 is a copy, 2 is a backup" ;D) of about 400 GB of files onto DVDs, organizing those DVDs and then storing them is something I would start on but just wouldn't finish.  Now copying all files from one external drive to another one (and running a subsequent byte-level copy verification pass, just to be sure ::)) is something I actually accomplish, mostly because it's only a few mouse clicks or typed commands on my part and the computer does the rest.

Now if there was a relatively inexpensive way to have pressed DVDs made (like mass-market retail DVDs), I'd go for that option.  Even if the reflective coating is destroyed by oxidation, the data is still there, molded into the plastic.  Then it's just a matter of restoring the reflective coating ;D.

Alright, enough pontificating on my part.  May everyone's archive live a long life...
 
Just finished doing around 25 DVDS :D
Yes, it is a lot of work but I suppose I have my "working" files on the PC, my backups on the external and the actual videos on DVD for watching on TV. If all goes pear-shaped, hopefully one source will still be there.
The music parts are not so bad as they take up much less space but those videos (esp the HD ones).
Still nothing lasts forever and, as I'm getting on in years, the DVDs will probably outlast me ;D
I don't think I had much only on that drive (it had always been a little "odd" - things like crashing when doing a defrag etc so I never really trusted it from the start).
I've had fun tonight changing my new 500GB drive to FAT32 as I also have a PC using WinMe.
Tonight I'm copying all the videos I have downloaded and not yet burned to DVD - and on it goes.
Ah, the joys of Disney...............
 
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