Recovering photos from a cracked CD?

[mom2rtk]

One of 2 Photopass CD's from our last trip is cracked. All I can figure is that I did it taking it out of the package. It goes from the center of the disc about an inch into it. When I put it in the optical drive, the computer doesn't recognize the drive.

Is it just toast? I don't have a backup of these photos. Sigh.

 

[boBQuincy]

CDs are pretty tough, I doubt you cracked it unless it was defective to start with. Try it in an older CD-only drive if you can find one. The laser is different from the one in a DVD player and it might work.

 

[mom2rtk]

CDs are pretty tough, I doubt you cracked it unless it was defective to start with. Try it in an older CD-only drive if you can find one. The laser is different from the one in a DVD player and it might work.

I appreciate the suggestion Bob! I actually had an old computer here with a CD only drive. I just set it all up.........and nothing. Back to square 1. I also tried the disc in a number of computers around the house..... to no avail.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

YMMV but some sound suggestions in here. I don't usually endorse eHow but these aren't that bad.

http://www.ehow.com/how_6216506_can-recover-data-cracked-cd_.html

 

[photo_chick]

I've had several cracked game discs for our xbox 360. It's not fun. Especially when it's something you paid for or cannot replace.

The crack... does it go past the clear center into the silver area. If so the disc is most likely toast. If it is only in the clear area you can reinforce the disc several ways and it may stop it from flexing in the drive so it can be read. My favorite method is a little super glue then use tape onto of that. You have to make sure it's all sealed down well, and that you're not adding any bulk into the hole in the center.

Fair warning... when cracked discs explode they can break drives. I had an Aliens Vs. Predator disc that had a hairline crack explode in the drive. I reassembled and photographed the remains though, that was fun.

http://instagram.com/p/OMYAoCo8Rq/?modal=true

edited to add... and yes, it can easy happen when taking it out of the package. We realized that's what was contributing to our game discs breaking. We switched to paper sleeves and haven't had a new crack since then.

 

[mom2rtk]

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone.

Danielle, the crack goes past the clear center and about an inch into the silver area. Overall the disc still seems pretty stable. It didn't bridge the printing on the front side of the Photopass disc.

One of the drives I tried it in today is an old external DVD drive my husband bought some time ago to use in conjunction with a netbook that had no drive. It was sitting on my desk, so I just tried over and over while I was reading online.

Eventually the strangest thing happened and it actually recognized it as a disc. It knew it was a photopass disc at that point but didn't show any data in the folder. So I brought up the recovery program I downloaded this afternoon. I've had it running ever since. In 4 1/2 hours it has been running, it has recovered 9 1/2 MB .......... out of 586 MB. It's not that it can't find more. It's that it's that slow. So I guess I'll let it run for the next couple of weeks or so?

Anyway, that's about 3 photos (oh, and a duplicate of the license agreement) I didn't have before. So we'll see what happens. But I see no point in stopping it since I don't know if I can get it to recognize the disc again.

 

[photo_chick]

I've never been able to get one to read anything once it's into the silver area, but then I've only tried it with game discs. I hope it's able to get more than the 9 1/2 MB for you.

 

[mom2rtk]

Thanks Danielle. I had hoped it would work on it all night but the computer hibernated in the night. It's up to 14 MB this morning. I'm quite relieved it recognized the disc when I turned it back on.

So I googled how to stop hibernation, and hopefully can now let it just work in the background until it hits the crack and stops. You know, next year.

 

[ThurlFan]

CD/DVD trivia: Unlike vinyl music records, which are played starting at the outer edge and play toward the center, CD/DVDs begin reading from the inside near the clear center outward toward the edges. That's why if a crack crosses the line from the clear area to the silver area the disc generally cannot be read/played.

 

[mom2rtk]

CD/DVD trivia: Unlike vinyl music records, which are played starting at the outer edge and play toward the center, CD/DVDs begin reading from the inside near the clear center outward toward the edges. That's why if a crack crosses the line from the clear area to the silver area the disc generally cannot be read/played.

I had absolutely no idea. And it gives me hope. The shots I'm most concerned about are toward the "end" of the CD. I assumed that was the middle and my chances were low. The recovery, although painfully slow actually started with the license agreement ("first" item on the disc) and is progressing through all of the early files.

I wonder if it's too much to hope that it might speed up when it gets past that center (cracked) area!

 

[ThurlFan]

Have you contacted Disney to request a replacement?

 

[mom2rtk]

Have you contacted Disney to request a replacement?

These were from December. Regardless, I still double checked with them and confirmed there's nothing they can do.

 

[mom2rtk]

Well, that was disappointing. It moved slower than molasses until last night. I wondered if that was maybe because it was working through the cracked section first, and was optimistic it might speed up when it got to the intact outer area.

I was right about that. When I got up this morning, it was done. But it only recovered 10 out of 415 photos. Of course 2 of those were stock photos, the others were Santa photos in the resorts. I really wanted some park photos.

Live and learn I suppose. I bought a new drive for backing up all of our years of photopass CDs.

I do have the Photopass CM always take a photo with my camera, so I have many of the same shots. But not the photos in front of the castle lit up for Christmas.

Thanks for everyone's input and suggestions.

 

[Frantasmic]

I am surprised all these artistic types here didn't come up with the obvious and simple answer....





GO AGAIN THIS CHRISTMAS AND TAKE NEW PICTURES!

You deserve it.

 

[mom2rtk]

I am surprised all these artistic types here didn't come up with the obvious and simple answer....





GO AGAIN THIS CHRISTMAS AND TAKE NEW PICTURES!

You deserve it.

LOL, we were going to do that already! I like your thinking though! I'm sure glad we're returning to DLR again. And I'm going to take dozens of night shots in front of the castle. In our entire 10 day trip to WDW in 2012 we completely missed getting that shot. We kept putting it off and ran out of time before Wishes our last night there. So we made a big point of getting night castle shots when we went to DLR last year. So much for that.

I'm running the disc again, but I think I have all I'm going to get.

 

[mom2rtk]

Many thanks to ThurlFan who PM'd me the name of a couple other programs I could try. Within about 15 minutes I had more than 300 files extracted. That's far more than I expected to get back, and included the night castle shot I wanted.

Thanks so much for everyone's help, and thanks again ThurlFan!

Photo0404FourBySix by mom2rtk, on Flickr

 

[boBQuincy]

Photo0404FourBySix by mom2rtk, on Flickr

Happily ever after!!!

 

[KCmike]

Congrats Janet. I'm glad you were able to pull that many photos out of it. What a sick feeling that would have been. This just reminds me yet again to backup what i have right now.

 

[mom2rtk]

Happily ever after!!!

Congrats Janet. I'm glad you were able to pull that many photos out of it. What a sick feeling that would have been. This just reminds me yet again to backup what i have right now.

Thanks guys! I'm VERY happy with what I was able to recover. It was about 80%. I'm still messing around with the last ones (I'd love to get our Anna/Elsa photos back, but do have those on my camera) but if I don't get any more, I'm still hugely relieved.

And I agree Mike...... I'm taking it as a brick upside the head to evaluate all of my backup arrangements again.

 

[ThurlFan]

So happy for you

What an awful feeling to think all those photos were lost! Glad you got the castle pic back especially