We're aware that some users are experiencing technical issues which the team are working to resolve. See the Community Noticeboard for more info. Thank you for your patience.
📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!

CD has been wiped clean

Options
Drinda
Drinda Posts: 265 Forumite
I research our family history and a chap made a CD for me with all the info, pictures and photos that I had collected, He made this about 2 years ago and I used it a few times at first, but I recently tried to make a copy to give to a family member and found that there was nothing on the CD, we tried it on several other machines but the properties say it is empty. Can someone please tell me how a plain CD/R can be cleaned like this and if there is anything I can do to prevent it happening again as it is going to be a lot of work sorting through paperwork to build all this info up again.
I asked in PC WORLD all they would say is "yes it can happen" well that was stating the obvious because because I have the empty disc, but they could not tell me why and how. The CD runs in HTML file format.
Thanking you Drinda.

Comments

  • weegie.geek
    weegie.geek Posts: 3,432 Forumite
    http://www.isobuster.com/

    normal non-rewritable discs can't be blanked, but you can update the table of contents and mark files as deleted. The files are still there, just in a previous session.

    ISOBuster should let you read the various sessions and get your data back.

    A damaged CD can also appear to be blank, but give ISOBuster a bash.

    And then start using more than a 20p CD to hold 2 years of work. ;)
    They say it's genetic, they say he can't help it, they say you can catch it - but sometimes you're born with it
  • totalsolutions
    totalsolutions Posts: 3,110 Forumite
    Do you still have the cd writer that was used to burn the data?
    Can you use that to read the info?
    Any damage on the cd surface?
  • Viper_7
    Viper_7 Posts: 1,220 Forumite
    Cheap CD by the sounds of it. They don't last forever and some don't last very long at all.
  • Marty_J
    Marty_J Posts: 6,594 Forumite
    Sounds like a case of CD rot to me:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_rot

    You should be using good quality CDs like Verbatim to store important information. Maybe making a few copies and keeping them in separate places. There are also various places online where you can store things. Redundancy is a good thing.
  • asininity
    asininity Posts: 1,615 Forumite
    Get a usb drive and store your stuff on that as well.
  • motorguy
    motorguy Posts: 22,611 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Yes, there is an impression that info on CD's lasts forever.

    Unfortunately it doesnt. Backups to multiple sources is the only preventor...
  • Drinda
    Drinda Posts: 265 Forumite
    Thank all for your replies and the info for isobuster and I can now tell my sons I have not lost my marbles.
    Thanks again Drinda.
This discussion has been closed.
Meet your Ambassadors

🚀 Getting Started

Hi new member!

Our Getting Started Guide will help you get the most out of the Forum

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 350.9K Banking & Borrowing
  • 253.1K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 453.5K Spending & Discounts
  • 243.9K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 598.8K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 176.9K Life & Family
  • 257.2K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 16.1K Discuss & Feedback
  • 37.6K Read-Only Boards

Is this how you want to be seen?

We see you are using a default avatar. It takes only a few seconds to pick a picture.