G
Guest
Folks, bear with me, this is going to be a long post. I am still trying to
find a way to recover data (pictures and text files) from a CD-RW that I
accidentally erased. I think it was a quick erase. I used the built-in Roxio
package that comes with XP Pro.
After trying many recovery packages without success, I discovered the
following post on a CD forum. It seems to give a glimmer of hope...
I would appreciate it if you could take a look at it and see what you think.
Thanks!
D33M3R
New on Forum
Join Date: Mar 2004
Exact same problem here... tried many programs including:
- Ontrack EasyRecovery
- Davory
- CDRoller
- BadCopy Pro
- etc.
Unless these programs can read outside of the existing (damaged or
undamaged) sessions they are of no use. The reason is: After QuickErase there
is no existing session...
I can think of two possible solutions:
(1) Anyone know a program that can create or edit a CDRW's session and set
the size to 700MB without actually writing any data?
This will make the datarecovery program start reading my data
OR
(2) Is there a sector reading program available that can read any given
CD-Sector outside of a session without giving an error?
This is what the data-recovery programs that I tried would not do
I am almost beginning to think that the spiral nature of the CD-Storage is
the root cause of this problem... If this is the case than every CD-Burner
does not burn the sectors on the same location of the disc and after the
leadout the hardware will refuse to read because it has to read from the
start. (Just speculating here)
Make any sense?
UPDATE:
Reading sectors beyond session in IsoBuster gives this error:
5 / 21 / 00 LOGICAL BLOCK ADDRESS OUT OF RANGE
This is supposed to be reported by the drive itself. Hopefully there is
still a way to read the data with a regular drive. If this is hardware
related you may need specific equipment.
UPDATE 2:
This is getting quite frustrating. Been looking everywhere on the net, no
programs that can read any given sector without giving the error mentioned
above when the sector is after the leadout... But there must be a way! The
sectors are still on the disc as type-1 data sectors. I cannot believe that
no one ever solved this problem at home for me ?!
Isn't there a way to put the CD-ROM in raw read mode, ignore sense codes,
just read?
Last edited by D33M3R : 30-03-2004 at 17:34.
HA HA -- I THINK I AM ON TO SOMETHING
I quick erased the disc again that I accidentally quick erased in the first
place. Then I made a new compilation in Nero with one big file that fills the
entire disc. When I press burn and right after it starts burning I quickly
press cancel. This will cause my CD-Writer to finish writing the lead-in and
then quit. Nero says that the burning failed...
But what I accomplished by doing this is that now I CAN read the sectors on
the entire disc! Right now I am dumping an image of all sectors of the disc
into a raw data file.
All I must do now is find out which file is where in the data, but hey we
have software for that
I will keep you posted on my progress....
UPDATE:
Progressing good!! I am recovering files!!! I used an old program for DOS
(good old days) that looks for file patterns. It is called “Multi Ripper.†I
am still looking for a better program which supports more modern file formats.
END OF THE LINE FOR ME
I got all my files back so this is the end of the line for me. It was not
easy because I had to extract my files from one big file that was an image of
the disc. The procedure I used:
Procedure used to recover data from a quick-erased CD-RW disc
1. Make a file of exactly the size of the cdrw disc's capacity (650MB in my
case).
(this step may not be needed)
2. With Nero I created a new project and added the file to it so that I have
the disc filled. I guess you can also fill up the disc with other files.
The reason I fill the disc is because I want Nero to make a session that
uses the entire disc. Like I wrote earlier in this thread I experienced that
my CD-Drive refuses to read off the disc beyond the session's boundaries.
When you quick-erase a disc there is no session anymore so the drive will not
read at all. Burning a new session will overwrite the data and burning only a
small session will NOT make the drive read the other data that is still on
the disc.
The reason why I used the one big file is so that I could later on recognize
which part of the disc was overwritten by this file because this file
contained all zeros (0x00).
3. I pressed burn and selected disc-at-once. Then while Nero was burning the
leadin I pressed cancel. My CD-Drive finished writing the lead-in and Nero
reported an error.
This is what was accomplished however: Now the disc contains a session that
says that the used disc size is the complete disc. Nero did not get to
writing file because I cancelled it. Good thing because I don't want Nero to
write any files because my old data will get overwritten!
I guess it works the same with different writing software. Another method I
used during a test was simply press the reset button of the computer when the
burning software was done with writing the lead-in and started with the files.
4. I had to restart the computer after canceling burning. With the CD RW
disc inserted I saw in "my computer" that windows recognized that the disc
was 650MB, clicking on it gave an error. Good so far!
Now with IsoBuster you can extract the sectors from a disc to a file. This
is what I did.
I guess if you have data-recovery software at this point it will be useful
because now (if all went well) the CD-Drive WILL read data from the entire
disc. Anyway, I used ISO-Buster because the files that I needed to recover
where a bit odd (.XM, .S3M, .MP3).
In IsoBuster I had to do several steps:
Step 1: Find out from and to which sector the drive will read
By choosing "Sector View" you can look at any given sector. Here I found out
what the first and the last sectors where that are readable. (Hint I used the
method for the old game: "Guess a number below 100, I'll tell if it is higher
or lower than what you guess")
Step 2: Extract the actual sectors
By choosing "Extract From-To" you can extract any given range of sectors to
a file. My disc was a data-disc so I choose the first extraction type "User
data, 2048 bytes/block...".
In the end I got a .tao file which was about 650MB. I ran several programs
on it to look for files inside a file by searching for file-header-patterns:
1. Multi Ripper 2.80 (for DOS, for the .XM files. It does many other file
formats as well (jpg,png, bmp,wav,etc,etc +100). Try Google with this query:
Multi Ripper 2.80. I still had the file from good old days but I saw several
good search results)
2. Winamp for mp3.
Winamp will scan any file when you give it the extension .mp3 and play it as
one big song (so I renamed the .tao file to .mp3). I used the discwriter to
get a .wav and the Adobe Audition to manually cut and save my songs. I looked
at the MP3 file format and it is hard to find an mp3 file in a big file
because it has no clear header just a bunch of mpeg-frames in most cases for
me. A lot of my files had no ID3v2 or ID3v1 tags... But after a couple of
hours I recovered everything.
Finally a list of used stuff:
Software:
- IsoBuster v1.5
- Nero 6.3.0.3
- Multi Ripper 2.80
- WinAmp v5.02
- Windows XP Pro NL (patched up)
Hardware:
- NEC DVDRW ND1300A 1.06
Disc:
- some old 4 speed CD-RW
I hope someone can use the info in this post. Use at own risk
find a way to recover data (pictures and text files) from a CD-RW that I
accidentally erased. I think it was a quick erase. I used the built-in Roxio
package that comes with XP Pro.
After trying many recovery packages without success, I discovered the
following post on a CD forum. It seems to give a glimmer of hope...
I would appreciate it if you could take a look at it and see what you think.
Thanks!
D33M3R
New on Forum
Join Date: Mar 2004
Exact same problem here... tried many programs including:
- Ontrack EasyRecovery
- Davory
- CDRoller
- BadCopy Pro
- etc.
Unless these programs can read outside of the existing (damaged or
undamaged) sessions they are of no use. The reason is: After QuickErase there
is no existing session...
I can think of two possible solutions:
(1) Anyone know a program that can create or edit a CDRW's session and set
the size to 700MB without actually writing any data?
This will make the datarecovery program start reading my data
OR
(2) Is there a sector reading program available that can read any given
CD-Sector outside of a session without giving an error?
This is what the data-recovery programs that I tried would not do
I am almost beginning to think that the spiral nature of the CD-Storage is
the root cause of this problem... If this is the case than every CD-Burner
does not burn the sectors on the same location of the disc and after the
leadout the hardware will refuse to read because it has to read from the
start. (Just speculating here)
Make any sense?
UPDATE:
Reading sectors beyond session in IsoBuster gives this error:
5 / 21 / 00 LOGICAL BLOCK ADDRESS OUT OF RANGE
This is supposed to be reported by the drive itself. Hopefully there is
still a way to read the data with a regular drive. If this is hardware
related you may need specific equipment.
UPDATE 2:
This is getting quite frustrating. Been looking everywhere on the net, no
programs that can read any given sector without giving the error mentioned
above when the sector is after the leadout... But there must be a way! The
sectors are still on the disc as type-1 data sectors. I cannot believe that
no one ever solved this problem at home for me ?!
Isn't there a way to put the CD-ROM in raw read mode, ignore sense codes,
just read?
Last edited by D33M3R : 30-03-2004 at 17:34.
HA HA -- I THINK I AM ON TO SOMETHING
I quick erased the disc again that I accidentally quick erased in the first
place. Then I made a new compilation in Nero with one big file that fills the
entire disc. When I press burn and right after it starts burning I quickly
press cancel. This will cause my CD-Writer to finish writing the lead-in and
then quit. Nero says that the burning failed...
But what I accomplished by doing this is that now I CAN read the sectors on
the entire disc! Right now I am dumping an image of all sectors of the disc
into a raw data file.
All I must do now is find out which file is where in the data, but hey we
have software for that
I will keep you posted on my progress....
UPDATE:
Progressing good!! I am recovering files!!! I used an old program for DOS
(good old days) that looks for file patterns. It is called “Multi Ripper.†I
am still looking for a better program which supports more modern file formats.
END OF THE LINE FOR ME
I got all my files back so this is the end of the line for me. It was not
easy because I had to extract my files from one big file that was an image of
the disc. The procedure I used:
Procedure used to recover data from a quick-erased CD-RW disc
1. Make a file of exactly the size of the cdrw disc's capacity (650MB in my
case).
(this step may not be needed)
2. With Nero I created a new project and added the file to it so that I have
the disc filled. I guess you can also fill up the disc with other files.
The reason I fill the disc is because I want Nero to make a session that
uses the entire disc. Like I wrote earlier in this thread I experienced that
my CD-Drive refuses to read off the disc beyond the session's boundaries.
When you quick-erase a disc there is no session anymore so the drive will not
read at all. Burning a new session will overwrite the data and burning only a
small session will NOT make the drive read the other data that is still on
the disc.
The reason why I used the one big file is so that I could later on recognize
which part of the disc was overwritten by this file because this file
contained all zeros (0x00).
3. I pressed burn and selected disc-at-once. Then while Nero was burning the
leadin I pressed cancel. My CD-Drive finished writing the lead-in and Nero
reported an error.
This is what was accomplished however: Now the disc contains a session that
says that the used disc size is the complete disc. Nero did not get to
writing file because I cancelled it. Good thing because I don't want Nero to
write any files because my old data will get overwritten!
I guess it works the same with different writing software. Another method I
used during a test was simply press the reset button of the computer when the
burning software was done with writing the lead-in and started with the files.
4. I had to restart the computer after canceling burning. With the CD RW
disc inserted I saw in "my computer" that windows recognized that the disc
was 650MB, clicking on it gave an error. Good so far!
Now with IsoBuster you can extract the sectors from a disc to a file. This
is what I did.
I guess if you have data-recovery software at this point it will be useful
because now (if all went well) the CD-Drive WILL read data from the entire
disc. Anyway, I used ISO-Buster because the files that I needed to recover
where a bit odd (.XM, .S3M, .MP3).
In IsoBuster I had to do several steps:
Step 1: Find out from and to which sector the drive will read
By choosing "Sector View" you can look at any given sector. Here I found out
what the first and the last sectors where that are readable. (Hint I used the
method for the old game: "Guess a number below 100, I'll tell if it is higher
or lower than what you guess")
Step 2: Extract the actual sectors
By choosing "Extract From-To" you can extract any given range of sectors to
a file. My disc was a data-disc so I choose the first extraction type "User
data, 2048 bytes/block...".
In the end I got a .tao file which was about 650MB. I ran several programs
on it to look for files inside a file by searching for file-header-patterns:
1. Multi Ripper 2.80 (for DOS, for the .XM files. It does many other file
formats as well (jpg,png, bmp,wav,etc,etc +100). Try Google with this query:
Multi Ripper 2.80. I still had the file from good old days but I saw several
good search results)
2. Winamp for mp3.
Winamp will scan any file when you give it the extension .mp3 and play it as
one big song (so I renamed the .tao file to .mp3). I used the discwriter to
get a .wav and the Adobe Audition to manually cut and save my songs. I looked
at the MP3 file format and it is hard to find an mp3 file in a big file
because it has no clear header just a bunch of mpeg-frames in most cases for
me. A lot of my files had no ID3v2 or ID3v1 tags... But after a couple of
hours I recovered everything.
Finally a list of used stuff:
Software:
- IsoBuster v1.5
- Nero 6.3.0.3
- Multi Ripper 2.80
- WinAmp v5.02
- Windows XP Pro NL (patched up)
Hardware:
- NEC DVDRW ND1300A 1.06
Disc:
- some old 4 speed CD-RW
I hope someone can use the info in this post. Use at own risk