How to recover data from damaged/scratched CD?

Post date: May 3, 2011 3:40:00 AM

A Problem with CD and DVD disc is it don’t last forever and also it’s sensitive. If the disc has your finger print or small scratches because of bad handling, chances are old disc players can’t read the disc properly. As for most modern disc players, it has error correction and can usually read through fingerprints as scratched surface. However, if your disc player is unable to read your disc and you need to get back your data or photo from there, here are a few tools that you can use to try to get back your data before taking chances in some weird methods such as using toothpaste, banana skin, candle wax or even flushing it in toilet bowl!

Before you get to the list of programs that can help you recover data from scratched CD, I would like to explain to you how does all these program work. When a disc is badly scratched, that part will become impossible to read. If you copy the CD contents directly through Windows copy and paste function, you will definitely get an error saying that the file is corrupted. But with the programs below, you can copy and keep the file till the last bit that it was able to copy without error. That means that it is able to copy whatever it can without giving you error message and stopping there. 

1. Roadkil’s Unstoppable Copier 

- Roadkil’s Unstoppable Copier recovers files from disks with physical damage. Allows you to copy files from disks with problems such as bad sectors, scratches or that just give errors when reading data. The program will attempt to recover every readable piece of a file and put the pieces together. Using this method most types of files can be made usable even if some parts were not recoverable in the end. It’s easy to use, small, portable and no installation required. Just select the source, destination and click Copy. This can be used on hard drive as well.

2. CD Recovery Toolbox 

- CD Recovery Toolbox (download) tool was developed for recovering damaged files from different disk types: CD, DVD, HD DVD, Blu-Ray, etc. You can use it to restore information lost as a result of some mechanical damage of the disk (scratches, chips, different spots on the surface) or as a result of incorrect recording.

3. IsoPuzzle 

The goal of this program is to recover as much as possible data of damaged, bad burned or scratched CDs or DVDs. This version supports only data CDs and DVDs with sectorsize of 2048 byte - Audio CD, VCD and SVCD are not supported. Before you can start using IsoPuzzle, you’ll need to download wnaspi32.dll and place it in the IsoPuzzle’s directory.

DOWNLOAD WNASPI32.DLL

4. CDCheck 

- CDCheck is utility for prevention, detection and recovery of damaged files with emphasis on error detection. It can check each your CD/DVD (or any other media) and indicate which files are corrupted. CDCheck is actually a shareware but then it’s free for PERSONAL use. You can request for a free license key at this page.

5. IsoBuster 

- IsoBuster is a highly specialized yet easy to use optical media data recovery tool. It supports all optical disc formats and all common optical disc file-systems. IsoBuster is also a shareware but you can use it for free by clicking the “Free funct. only” button when you’re prompted to register to enable the PRO functionality.

If you’ve tried all 5 free data recovery tool for scratched, damaged or defective CD but still doesn’t work, you can head on to YouTube, search for “scratch cd” and take the risk by trying those weird methods to fix a scratched disc. Try the method that has the most comment and also success rate. If there are only 5 comments and majority of it says “it doesn’t work”, then you can forget about it.

-Courtesy Barunang