Recover data from damaged optical media

February 20, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Most of us know that recovering deleted or lost files from a hard-disk drive requires a good disk utility. But did you know that disk utility probably doesn’t work on data that’s lost on CDs and DVDs? In fact, many of you probably don’t realize you can lose data on optical media in the first place.

We consider optical media to be bullet-proof, the ideal way to archive data you wish to preserve forever (or at least 100 years, as claimed by most manufacturers). But these mirrored disks are subject to damage such as scratches and other imperfections that can impair the media.

Plus, recent studies have shown that recordable CDs may have a shorter shelf life than their original claims. Some independent researchers suggest that the dyes used in certain brands of CD-R disks may oxidize and darken in just a few short years thus rendering them useless.

Data that is stored on optical media is indexed using a very different method than computer data stored on magnetic media such as hard and floppy disks. The latter uses indexing methods such as File Allocation Tables (FAT) and the like.

Optical media doesn’t, which means that those hard-disk-recovery utilities just won’t work on your CD and DVD collection. Fortunately, there’s a company that makes some unique utility products designed to recover lost data on damaged optical media.

CD/DVD Diagnostic ($39.95) from InfinaDyne is one such product from this company that will recover any files from optical media and back them up to your hard-disk drive. According to InfinaDyne, CD/DVD Diagnostic will find and restore this information regardless of the type of data, be it video, pictures or computer data.

CD/DVD Diagnostic will locate and recover these files no matter what kind of data files they are. And now Version 3.0 has a new video reconstruction system which virtually assures complete recovery of all damaged or inaccessible video discs.

When looking at the supported disks, the list is impressive and includes all PC and Macintosh CDs and DVDs. I suggest you visit the InfinaDyne website to see all of the supported formats and disk types.

Another CD product worth mentioning from InfinaDyne is their AccuBurn-R ($41.99) program. How many times have you tried to burn a CD only to find yourself the proud owner of a coaster?

So many things can interfere with the creation of a CD, such as buffer underruns, or something as simple as a bad spot on the disk itself.

With AccuBurn-R, InfinaDyne actually guarantees that every CD you burn will be functional. The way they can make this claim is that AccuBurn-R first checks its written data for accuracy.

If any errors are detected due to foreign objects, media defects, dirt, scratches or any other factors that cause recording problems, they are automatically corrected and then the data is burned again onto another portion of the recordable CD.

And if you already use another product such as those offered by Roxio, Nero, DLA and others to create recordable CDs, you can still use AccuBurn-R in conjunction with them to insure a perfect burn. Again, I strongly suggest you visit the InfinaDyne website and see the specifications of these products for yourself.

We all use optical media and it’s amazing to me how we take it for granted that these kinds of media are somehow indestructible. They’re not.

So when it comes to pass that one of your precious disks becomes unreadable, it will be a good thing to have one or all of the InfinaDyne products in your arsenal of utility software products.

All of the above products work with Windows and are compatible with Windows 7.

Craig Crossman is a national newspaper columnist writing about computers and technology. He also hosts the No. 1 daily national computer radio talk show, “Computer America,” heard on Business TalkRadio Monday through Friday, 10 p.m.-midnight. For more information, visit his website at www.computeramerica.com.

2011, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services