CD-R hasn't finalised, shows blank?

[Seno]

Hi Everybody,

My colleague used a Neal 9321P audio interview recorder. The recorder takes 3xCD-R and live time records and duplicates to all 3 discs.

They noticed an error light flashing on one of the discs approximately 10 minutes through . At 45 minutes they tried to end the recording and they got another error. After some time they gave up and pulled the plug, turned it back on and ejected the discs.

One of the physical discs shows a small ring and the other two show the small ring then a further ring around that, taking up about 20% plus 50% of the disc.

Windows and Linux both show all discs as being blank. I've tried Nero RescueAgent and Nero Recode, both show them blank. I also tried a free burner, which was the same. I've tried duplicating the discs, same result.

I'm left with trying to burn a small amount of data to the disc to see if it will, and then finalising it then, and hopefully I can recover the first burned data.

If you have any ideas/suggestions I would love to hear them

Thanks in advance!

[lordsmurf]

Welcome.

Probably a bad discs, misrecorded, zero chance of recovery.

- What is the media ID, the MID, of the disc?
- And the brand?
- When bought, aka how old is the stock?

Do not burn more data to the disc, then it will definitely be 100% a lost cause.

Nero software is crap.
You need to ISO Buster. Pay the $60 for it, to access all recovery tools -- and Peter, the author, is a great guy. (If you don't want to spend the $60, then the interview is worthless to you.) If any data exists at all, ISO Buster will find it. If it finds nothing, nothing is there.

[Seno]

Thank you for the quick response @lordsmurf. I appreciate your honesty and you sound like you know what you're talking about

I can't see the brand of the disc but can see two numbers on the inside -

ZE6778-CDR-A80A AZ0
0101 A712

I also wouldn't know when the stock was bought but my guess would be not very recently.

I'll give ISO Buster a try. I think I read that you can do a free scan to find data and if you want it you need to pay...?! Either way it will be worth the money!

[lordsmurf]

Media ID is not printed on the disc, it's read by programs such as Imgburn.

[Seno]

Thank you again. A final (I think) update:

I used ISO Buster which showed one track on the disc, but it was around 2.6gb in size. I tried to extract the track to .wav which it eventually managed, but the track only contained errors. It appears I have no hope in recovering this!

Thank you for trying to help me

[lordsmurf]

All hope may not be lost yet. Now that the file is recovered (or can be), it needs to be analyzed.

Realize that CD data is not stored as files on a disc, but rather raw digital data recorded in the tracks/grooves. It's sort of like a jellyfish, no real distinct form. The "ripping" process extracts the data, forcing it into a computer data file (WAV container, with uncompressed PCM audio). It's like you took a jellyfish and them crammed it into a bottle; now it adopts the shape of the bottle.

That digital data could definitely be entirely corrupt junk. But it may just have header issues, which can be easy to sort, and plays fine once fixed.

2.6gb on a CD-R is definitely wrong, data reporting was corrupted.

I still want to know the media ID, and ISO Buster should have that info.
Nero DiscSpeed will, too, and is here: https://www.digitalFAQ.com/forum/med...a-quality.html

[Seno]

It's a Verbatim CD-R with MID 97m34s23f

[lordsmurf]

Odds are likely that this is fake disc, using stolen MCC media ID, on junk made in China or India or somewhere that is the source of garbage discs. Not legit Taiwanese MCC discs, either old-stock MCC-made or newer CMC-made.

Those fake discs always fail.

This may be a lesson to never use the cheapest discs, no-name discs, or store-brand discs.

[Seno]

Duly noted, thank you.

Do you know how I’d proceed from here? How do I analyse the jellyfish when I can’t even see the jellyfish?!

[lordsmurf]

- use known-good media
- properly use is devices to record
- finalize, close out recordings
- scan the discs to verify
- rip/extract the data to a non-optical backup

Honestly, CD-R recorders are an unsafe way to record live data. You are better served using tapes (yep, old-school), or use flash-based with a quality card from Samsung, Micron, SanDisk (Western Digital owns SanDisk).

[Seno]

Sorry I meant what can I now do with these existing discs to recover them? I appreciate the tips for the future.

[Seno]

I forgot to say - I tried more discs in the same machine to see what type of file is produced, in case that helps recover the data. You only get 1 .cda file, so I don't think helps with the 'broken discs' as it's just an index file.

I'm close to pulling the plug on this one, unless you believe there is still a chance...?