Recommendations for free (home) DVD ripper for unreadable DVD

Scorpio33

Hi.

I have an old DVD (RW) disc which has some old video files on it. I think they are parts of my wedding video, but I want to check it before binning it, as the chances are I already have that video saved on my hard drive. Unfortunately, some of the disc sectors are unreadable and so if you insert the DVD in the drive, the PC recognizes it as a blank DVD.

I have tried a few "Free" DVD rippers for unreadable DVDs, but all of them can show me the names of the files on the DVD, but in order to recover the files, I need to pay a fee.

I don't really want to pay to recover the files, as the chances are I already have them somewhere. But I want to at least know what the video is of in order to discount it (or recover it as necessary).

Is there any software anyone can recommend that will recover the old files for free. When I say free, I mean free from start to finish, not free to download.

AndyPix

Hi, im sorry im not aware of any FREE programs that do this ,


But i thought id just jump in here and warn you that this seems to be a neglected area of data recovery that seems to have been jumped on by malware pushers as most of the sites you are likely to come accross when searching for this are riddled with malware ..


Just be careful what you are doing and dont download all and sundry to see if it works ..

Scorpio33

AndyPix wrote: »

Hi, im sorry im not aware of any FREE programs that do this ,


But i thought id just jump in here and warn you that this seems to be a neglected area of data recovery that seems to have been jumped on by malware pushers as most of the sites you are likely to come accross when searching for this are riddled with malware ..


Just be careful what you are doing and dont download all and sundry to see if it works ..

Oh I agree, hence why I am asking on here.

If completely free software is not available, can anyone recommend any cheap software?

debitcardmayhem

You could here http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/CDRW
Never tried on cd/dvd though, the download is on the main page
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Main_Page

System

Hi

Piriform Recuva is worth a look.

esuhl

I'm trying to remember some of the tools I used a few years ago. These might help:

Unstoppable Copier (free)
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/unstoppable-copier.htm-1

ISOBuster (free basic functionality, or $40)
https://www.isobuster.com/

I can't remember if the latter's "free functionality" actually lets you recover any files (probably not).

DavidP24

Scorpio33 wrote: »

Hi.

I have an old DVD (RW) disc which has some old video files on it. I think they are parts of my wedding video, but I want to check it before binning it, as the chances are I already have that video saved on my hard drive. Unfortunately, some of the disc sectors are unreadable and so if you insert the DVD in the drive, the PC recognizes it as a blank DVD.

I have tried a few "Free" DVD rippers for unreadable DVDs, but all of them can show me the names of the files on the DVD, but in order to recover the files, I need to pay a fee.

I don't really want to pay to recover the files, as the chances are I already have them somewhere. But I want to at least know what the video is of in order to discount it (or recover it as necessary).

Is there any software anyone can recommend that will recover the old files for free. When I say free, I mean free from start to finish, not free to download.

Is a while since I did this but I seem to remember that in some apps (such as Nero) you could tell it to ignore errors, this was because like old floppy disks they used to have a bad bit sector as copy protection.

You can also reduce the speed of the DVD reading, there are also some cleaning liquids what may help, don't think they are that good.

I have used handbrake to convert DVD's to MP4 and have managed to get some sort of file when DVD has been unreadable (home video I recorded on my old DVD recorder). Handbrake is Open Source, which means free, you can even download the source code and fork it if you want.

So it may help you at least identify what is on the disk.

https://handbrake.fr

esuhl

johndough wrote: »

Piriform Recuva is worth a look.

That only works on rewritable media, so probably not DVD-Rs.

debitcardmayhem

Oh btw it may be worth trying the disc in a different drive on another pc or a DVD player

AndyPix

Recuvva doesnt work on any DVDs unfortunately , even dvdr(w)

Scorpio33

Thanks all for your help.

ISO Buster was the one I had already. It shows the files, but I have to pay$40 to recover them.

Unstoppable copier doesn't see any files on the disc (it assumes its blank and so can't find any files).
Handbrake does the same.
CG Security one does the same.

I'll keep looking, as maybe there is a setting on one of them to read the disc without assuming its blank.