CD and DVD repair vs. CD and DVD data recovery by copying it to a safe place

There appears to be a false notion out there that bad CDs and DVDs can still be fixed. The data can possibly still be recovered, but better not attempt to repair a disc. The same goes for BD and HD DVD.

While in some cases CD and DVD discs can be polished to remove scratches, with mixed results, most of the problems home users experience are not related to scratches, even though it is often suspected to be the cause of all troubles.

Most problems occur due to bad writes! For instance when the writer has no good write strategy or laser power setting for the particular media or when the media quality itself is doubtful, e.g. garage-shop media, bad settings in the media's pre-recorded information with regards to strategy and laser power, uneven dye distribution over the surface, warped media, eccentricity issues, uneven weight distribution in the media etc.

During a disc finalization process for instance, usually sections on the very inside and sections on the very outside of the disc need to be updated. Sections that may be different in quality, with all sorts of issues as a result.

Therefore it is crucial to understand that fixing / repairing CDs is not a good way to assure that your data is safe! It may buy some time, if it worked, but when things went wrong, try not to keep working with that bad disc, even if it is re-writable media, set your data safe as quick as possible and if needed write it to a new disc. Get rid of the bad disc.

With cost of media these days that is simply the smartest thing to do.

When it comes to recovering data from CD or DVD, meaning copying / extracting the data from disc to a safe place (e.g. Hard Disk), IsoBuster is the solution to your problems.

IsoBuster comes highly recommended by Philips, HP, Adaptec, Roxio, Nero, Sonic,... and is probably the most popular CD/DVD Data recovery software available to date.

I know it sounds like a sales pitch, and of course we like you to ultimately buy our software, but take it from an expert who has your interest at heart, do not rely on repairing a disc. Use other software to recover if you don't trust us, but don't mess with software that actually writes to your disc in an attempt to fix things. It will likely only make it worse.

Peter Van Hove
CEO Smart Projects
Former Senior Philips engineer who has seen the worst out there.

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