How do I recover information on a disc that has been damaged?

Disc sometimes become damaged and are no longer recognized or read by the optical drive or player. Recovering the files or information on the disc can sometimes be accomplished. You may or may not be able to recover all your information depending on how damaged the disc is.

There are programs that can help you recover data from scratched discs. If you copy the disc 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 until 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 an error message and stopping there.

 
1. Roadkil’s Unstoppable Copier - Recovers files from discs with physical damage. Allows you to copy files from discs 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 is required. Just select the source, destination and click Copy.
   
 
2. CD Recovery Toolbox - This tool was developed for recovering damaged files from different disc 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 disc (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 from Nero and place it in the IsoPuzzle’s directory.
   
 
4. CDCheck - A utility for prevention, detection and recovery of damaged files with emphasis on error detection. It can check each of your CD/DVDs (or any other media) and indicate which files are corrupted. CDCheck is actually a shareware but then it’s free for PERSONAL use.
   
 
5. IsoBuster - 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 full functionality you will need to purchase the program.
   
 

Improper care & handling of optical discs causes damage to varying degrees. When a disc is slightly damaged most, if not all, of the data can still be recovered through the use of specialized programs designed to read the data bit by bit and decipher good information from bad/damaged information. When a disc is damaged beyond repair the data is no longer recoverable.