(only some) Info on CD cannot be detected

[Guest]

I found an old (probably from 2000) CD of mine with what i KNOW has a LOT of
pics, documents, etc on it. But it only SHOWS one .doc file which i CAN
INDEED open. The disc shows that there is "X" % full...but NOT completely.
Basically, what I'm thinking is that my old pics ARE DEFINATELY on there
still...just how to get them. I've tried thru DOS, Explorer...no go. They
ONLY show that one .doc file. It was suggested to me a while ago that I try
to open them with the same program i used to save them-->it came bundled with
my computer back then (MGI Photosuite--again, from 2000).

Does anyone have suggestions on how to look at the contents of a CD
COMPLETELY AND WHOLLY, regardless of how the disc is/was formatted, etc? ANy
and all other suggestions are welcome! Thanks!

skottnbelltown @ yahoo . com

 

[Nathan McNulty]

There are data recovery software programs that can bypass the OS and
read directly from the CD, but those are expensive. I would try using
Nero and make a copy of the CD using the Read sectores in raw mode and
Read all subchannel data. It is possible that the dye used on the old
CD has degraded over the years and the OS is unable to read it.
Hopefully with a copy using RAW reading you may be able to get that data
burned to a new CD that can be read

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Skott.

In the "DOS" window, type: dir x:\ /a

This should show you ALL files and directories in the Root, no matter which
attributes (hidden, system, read-only) may be set. If you find a hidden
directory, then use the command again, but add the /s parameter to see the
contents of all subdirectories.

If dir \ /s/a doesn't show anything, then the files are not there. Except,
of course, that they may have been erased, which means the bits are still
there, but no "normal" way of seeing them.

Last year, I lost 10 GB of files on a 25 GB NTFS volume on my HD. After
months of searching and trying other utilities, I downloaded R-Studio
(US$70) from www.r-tt.com and was able to recover my "lost" files with that.
I don't know if that program would work on a CD or not.

RC