How to recover audio CD-R now reading as "Blank" ?
 

I have an audio CD that I made less than 10 years ago which now shows up in several tools as being "blank." It was a Ritek, and the ID now reads as Xcitek.

Are there any tools that can get past the file table (I assume that it may ONLY be the file table that is lost) and allow me to recover the audio information? I have tried a program called CD Recovery Toolbox, and it is only good for correcting checksum errors.

Cliff Sloane

Try http://www.stellarinfo.com/cd-data-recovery.htm or http://www.isobuster.com/isobuster.php .

Read over the methods listed here: Recover Data From a Bad Disc [GUIDE]
I'd first look at ISO Puzzle.

My other question would be this: How did you come to the conclusion that the disc was blank?

Remember that audio CDs are modulated digital audio, and file-less on disc. Put it into a dedicated audio CD player, and see if it's actually just a music disc.

If it's supposed to be data, then it may be an issue of the drive being locked by the OS. Reboot your computer, and look again.

[QUOTE=admin;13826]Read over the methods listed here: Recover Data From a Bad Disc [GUIDE]
I'd first look at ISO Puzzle.

My other question would be this: How did you come to the conclusion that the disc was blank? [/QUOTE}

Audiograbber, Exact Audio Copy, DVD Identifier and Nero Disk Information all say there is nothing there.

Did that. It said there was no disk in the drive.

I will try some of those tools that were suggested and will report what happens.

Now I have two more programs to add to the list. Both Stella Phoenix and ISO Buster say the disc is blank.

Many of you may say that it must be blank, right? i know it isn't because I put an adhesive label on it before I learned not to do that.

I really think some sort of hex editor may be the only hope, and that is a longshot too.

If your drive supports it you could try scanning the disc for low level errors using for example http://www.cdspeed2000.com/ (called Disc Quality Scan). It will not bring data back but may shed some light to the issue.

Flip the disc over. Does it have two shades in the dye layer? -- Both a burned and an unburned area? Few people really fill a disc to the last kilobyte, so it's rather easy to see the color differences, even on those "clear" dyes (the "silver" CD-R).

There is always the strong possibility that you labeled a blank disc. I know I've done it once or twice through the years, especially when I was in a rush to burn off a project.

It may really be blank.

continued from email...
Keep all related technical discussion in the forums -- not PMs or emails. Thanks!

The disc can't be burned from the outside in, so the inner ring is always the burned area.
If you can clearly see two color zones on the disc, burned inner and unburned outer, then something was burned.

Could it simply be an issue that the disc has not been "finalized" (session closed, etc)

Do you have Nero? With Nero, it's pretty easy to close out a disc.

VERY interesting for a number of reasons. Here are some questions:

1. Has it ever happened that data was lost on the INNER ring? I remember well when I burned it and I am convinced that this audio CD occupied nearly the entire disc capacity (It was a 75-minute live concert). So the two colors? Unless you have NEVER seen it before, I think data was lost on the INNER ring (roughly 10% of the area) and data remains on the OUTER 80%. If this is even remotely possible, it explains why it reads as "blank" and why none f the recovery programs can get past the inner ring.

2. I cannot find the choice to finalize a disc that all the programs say is completely blank. Is it in ImgBurn? I have Nero 8; older versions had it in the "Config" option, but I cannot find it in version 8. can you point me to it?

1. What you suggest is impossible. A disc cannot lose data in that manner. The thermal changes in the dye are permanent, at the time it is burned. If this were a DVD, two-toned colorization is easily explained by Z-CLV burning method, but I'm not readily aware of non-PCAV CD-R writing. I'd really have to know more about the disc's lineage, to postulate further.

2. I stopped using Nero with version 6, which I still use for data only, so I can't help much with version 8. In version 6, you can go to Recorder > Disc Info and it will show you any available sessions. I think that's where you can finalize, too. This is something I have to do maybe once every 3 years at most, so I don't always remember where it is -- it takes a few minutes of looking around for this non-obvious setting. The trouble with this is that you can't see the available setting unless you have a problem disc in the drive, which I don't have.