# How to recover a non-readable data CD?



## dancer

I DESPERATELY need to recover the documents on an old CD-R that's been sitting on a shelf for about 5 years.  I pulled it off the shelf the other day and tryed to access the documents on that disc, but now all of my computers read the CD as being blank with all the space available for burning.  Years ago I read the data more than once without any problem.  You can visibly see the burn circles on the bottom side and the CD is clearly labeled.  The CD shows no other signs of damage.  I'm guessing it just deteriorated over time.  

Is there anything I can use to try and recover this very valuable data????

Thanks,
Desperate.

PS:  The drive reads the disc as 0 bytes free space and 0 bytes of data.  I Tryed cleaning it with cotton swabs, water and cooking oil, then wiped it off well.  Same result.


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## MacBook

Is the disc itself damaged?  Have you tried using it in other computers with other OS's?  Does the disk management utility show that it is completely empty?


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## hjahmad

try a different computer, or one with a different OS.


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## The_Other_One

Do you know how the disk was burnt?  I've had issues with some of the older disks I burnt being unfinalized or containing multiple sessions.  Try using the same hardware/software combination as you did when the disk was created they have changed.  And as others have said, you could also try another computer/drive if possible.

If the disk is scratched up, try cleaning the disk or getting some disk repair paste.

I have seen some recovery software for CDs, but it really depends on how good your drive is.  Some drives have much better error-correction than others.  Some simply read the disks better.


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## tossy

Try it out, hope it will help you.

http://software.informer.com/getfree-recover-data-from-non-readable-disk/


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## mickeycooley.ie

"bad copy pro"

it recovers damaged, data on discs, but what you are describing sounds like a format issue. I had cd's burnt on an old Smart and friendly 2x CD burner (joliet 9660) and new drives, dvd/rw and dvd rom drives simply would show me 0 bytes but no free space either. frustrating. 

good luck
cheers


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## dancer

Tried cooking oil on the disk again.  Wiped 98% of if off and was able to read the file list a couple times, then all went blank again, i.e. drive keeps telling me the CD is blank.  Also tried Linux and about 8 other CD drives, none would read it.

Going to try Bad Copy Pro tomorrow.  Thanks for all the replys.  Will keep you posted as to final result.


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## shepon

http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-recover-data-from-scratchedunreadable-cddvds/


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