losing data on dvd-R

rachaelj_2

hello,
recently i have copied som of my dvd files and music files on to a DVD-R and i checked that they were correctly there. but when i looked for them today they have all disappeared, no sight of them anywhere!

anyone know how i can get them back? or is it something wrong with my cd drive?

thanks
Rachael

jaydeeuk1

You sure you're looking at the right DVD lol.. Is there any data on the DVD? If you turn it upside down, you'll be able to see where the laser has burnt data to the disc. If it looks burnt, but nowt is showing up, then it could be your 'cd' (I assume you mean DVD drive) not liking the disc, in which case try a different DVD drive, or the data wasn't written correctly which can happen, and is therefore 'corrupt' and difficult to recover.

rachaelj_2

hehe, yea it is the right drive im looking at. well i have a laptop and so have only one disc drive and yes it is burned on the back of the disc

jaydeeuk1

Ok, well whack the disk in to the machine, and let the cd load up. Do select all and right click to properties (I take it files are showing up, just not the ones you thought).
It will then say 'size on disk' in megabytes / gigabytes.

eg. 2096 mb

Right, click on 'ok' and right click on your CD drive letter (d: and go to properties. A window will appear with used space and free space. The used space should match exactly with the figure you had above. If it does, then your files are not on that disk! Or if they are, they must be in a folder somewhere on that disk. If its massively different, then the files are either burnt/corrupt/!!!!!!ed.

rachaelj_2

well, when i put the disk in and load it up, no files appear and when i go onto my computer and click properties it says that thre are no files but there are as i have found them using a different pc. what can i do to my laptop to fix my drive?

custardy

is your drive a dvd or cd rom?

totalsolutions

You may have wrote them in a different "session".
You may not have "permission" to read the files. Do you log on to that pc?

rachaelj_2

it is a dvd multi recorder
and yes i do log onto my laptop and i burned the files whilst on my profile and i am trying to view them on my profile too

spakkker

Will your laptop play/read other dvd's/cd's?

rachaelj_2

it normally reads both types of dvd plus cd's but its decided not to 2day

tomstickland

I spent a while reading up on recordable and re-recordable CDs and DVDs and it's a bit of lottery as to what drives will read what. There's a lack of a standard for certain parts IIRC.