DVD-R woes...

[Jek Hawkins]

Well, I'm back, for better or for worse...

My friend has a Dell laptop-about a month ago she burned some pictures to a DVD-R for safekeeping. After testing it and finding it to be okay, she then deleted the originals off her HDD. (On a side note, the laptop has Vista)

The method she used was the general method of click-and-drag => Burn files to DVD

When it was done without disk errors, she ejected it and put it back in to check it and found that it was working properly, that is, the files were all there.

Now (a month later) the pictures cannot be found. The DVD-Rs are branded "Philips", 1-8x speed, 4.7 GB OR 120 min. worth of storage. The disc, when inserted, reads as 4.38 GB of total space (normal). But roughly 600 MB are listed as "used". These are (presumably) the pictures. The disc's physical appearance has a band of written data that is roughly proportional to this used space.

I have done what I can:

I have tried the DVD-R in other computers.
I have tried the DVD-R in a DVD-ROM drive.
I have tried copying the CD using the Roxio utility.
I have tried adding more files to the DVD and then closing it.
I have tried checking for hidden files.
I have tried chkdsk.

Does anybody have any suggestions? My friend is...um...extremely determined to get these files back, as they are of extreme importance to her.

Thanks in advance,
JH

[wereit]

I too have had this happen.  Dvd burned and worked fine, even watched the videos myself... then it was put into another computer, and it was blank there, replaced it back into the original machine, and it was blank, burned but blank.  All I can put it down to is an inadvertant 'wipe' of the dik.  The wrong selection at the dialogue box of 'what do you want to do' when a disk is read in xp anyway....

If a disk is not closed at burn then the wiping or formatting of this disk is very easily done... by a slip of the click...

[programming_pat]

Some brands of drives, are only made to work with certain brands of disks. Once my Toshiba DVD drive, wouldent read phillips disks.

[Jek Hawkins]

Nuts...

Yeah, I have also had this problem, but I never figured out if there is any way to fix it. She IS aware that this might be irreparable, but unfortunately it doesn't come as much consolation... 

Even I don't have any clue how precious these were to her in fact...

Well, post is still up if there are even the most crack-brained ideas?

Thanks to pat and wereit for responding so quickly! When I go to work tonight I will try some more DVD players.

[Calum]

I would give ISOBuster a shot.
I've heard it can be very good at recovering data from damaged CDs and DVDs.
I think the issue may be that the disk wasn't closed properly, I always close my disks to avoid this happening.

[Jek Hawkins]

That's cool, I've never heard of ISO Buster before. I'll report back after trying. Thanks, Calum!

[Jek Hawkins]

NICE!!

Your suggestion was right on the money! (Literally, lol)

Looks like ISOBuster has another $30 from me too, haha.

Opening the DVD in ISOBuster showed the data properly, but in order to extract it I am forced to purchase it. However, at this stage in the game, $30 is a small price to pay-THANK YOU COMPUTERHOPE.COM

[Calum]

I should've mentioned that ISOBuster costs money, sorry.
But, it's a small price to pay for what it could potentially save.
I've never used it myself but I know of several miraculous recoveries that have been performed with it so I figured it was worth a shot.
I'm glad it was able to help you in this case, it's horrible to lose irreplaceable data like that.

[Jek Hawkins]

no worries about costing money, as you mentioned, it is indeed a small price to pay for irrecoverable data 

*thank you* *thank you*

i'm actually in the middle of using it now, let's see here...

[patio]

There is still aFREE ver. of ISOBuster with only 2 features crippled...

[Jek Hawkins]

haha patio i already bought it, but you have my interest-how can we get it?

[mcxeb52!]

isobuster is a good program. so is magiciso.

[wereit]

if the dvd was burned as a iso file format, you will need a virtual drive programme to load it and therefor view it.... try daemon tools... worked for me...

Good luck