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Recovering picture files from top-damaged CD

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Tags: Hardware, Windows

A friend has old, valuable jpeg picture files on a CD. Most of them are okay but about 35 are unreadable due to a gouge in the foil on the top of the disc. It measures about 1 mm by 6mm. I tried IsoBuster 3.8 on a few files but after an hour or so on each it just came up with garbage. What bothers me is that the tracks interrupted by the gouge at that point on the disc would be about 11 cm in circumference with a 1mm break. So we’re only missing like 0.9% of the data. Can’t we work around that? Also, there is a thumbs.db file on the disc. How could I retrieve the pictures from that? I tried an online reader for that file but all the images, even on the good files, were whited-out garbage. The readers you are supposed so be able to download just download Winzip. Any suggestions? I am using Windows 10 on an old I-5. Thanks.

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Correction to earlier post

In reply to Recovering picture files from top-damaged CD

The track circumference should be 22 cm, not 11.

Re: recovering

In reply to Recovering picture files from top-damaged CD

This seems to confirm an old saying here: “You only lose what you didn’t backup.” Sorry to see that your friend didn’t do that.

Reply To: Recovering picture files from top-damaged CD

In reply to Recovering picture files from top-damaged CD

I am not recommending a brand/product, but I remember back in the day I used to purchase scratch repair kits that users would spread a cream on the surface of the CD/DVD, buff it completely and let dry completely before putting it back in the media drive. It was never a guarantee, but it was a fairly cheap method that sometimes solved such issues.

Reminder to all, do not post links or they will be removed as SPAM.

Reply To: Recovering picture files from top-damaged CD

In reply to Reply To: Recovering picture files from top-damaged CD

Thanks. Was this product supposed to fix scratches on the top or bottom of the CD? Thanks also for the tip about not posting links; being new to the forum I didn’t know that.

Not recommending anything.

In reply to Recovering picture files from top-damaged CD

Going in you know that the data is gone wherever the damage is. Fixing a scratch on the non-data side is possible but that’s not the problem here so fixing a scratch on the FOIL will not help. The foil is where the data is. See the web about how CD/DVD/BR disc are constructed.

That aside, try PHOTOREC and give it time. If it says 140 hours to recover, give it that time.

But any data and pictures that were on the removed foil are gone for good.

Reply To: Recovering picture files from top-damaged CD

In reply to Not recommending anything.

I have to agree with rproffitt about scratches/gouges down to the foil. I originally missed that part and once the metal foil is damaged, it might be impossible to recover the data in that location.

Reply To: Recovering picture files from top-damaged CD

In reply to Reply To: Recovering picture files from top-damaged CD

Thanks for all the help. I have Photorec plugging away at it now. It went black screen, “not responding” once but then somehow resurrected itself and picked up where it left off. Tip for anyone reading this and not familiar with that software: if you have it running in the background and want to go back to it, first hover the cursor over the icon on the bottom bar, then hover on the small version of its screen.

I did find software that would unpack the thumbs.db file, but, needless to say, a 96 X 72 pixel rendition of a 1200 X 1600 picture doesn’t look real good.
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