CD DVD Data Recovery Software Overview # Session II

D. DVD Disaster

What the developer says:

CD, DVD and BD media keep their data only for a finite time (typically for many years). After that time, data loss develops slowly with read errors growing from the outer media region towards the inside.

Archival with data loss protection

dvdisaster stores data on CD/DVD/BD (supported media) in a way that it is fully recoverable even after some read errors have developed. This enables you to rescue the complete data to a new medium.

Data loss is prevented by using error correcting codes. Error correction data is either added to the medium or kept in separate error correction files. dvdisaster works at the image level so that the recovery does not depend on the file system of the medium. The maximum error correction capacity is user-selectable.

DVD Disaster is not a typical data recovery software, as it can be used to prevent data recovery by adding error correction codes to optical disks. To create error correction codes a disk image is required. The program is able to create those disk images and create the codes. Those codes can then later be used to recover files from a disk.

E. Roadkil’s Unstoppable Copier

What the developer says:

Recovers files from disks with physical damage. Allows you to copy files from disks 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 useable even if some parts of the file were not recoverable in the end.

The program can be used as a daily backup system using its batch mode functions. A list of transfers can be saved to a file and then run from the command line to perform the same batch of transfers on a regular basis without having to use the GUI interface. The program supports command line parameters which allow the application to be run from schedulers or scripts so it can be fully integrated into daily server tasks.

Roadkill’s Unstoppable Copier can read data from any kind of disk. It tries to recovery files on a byte level, and can copy files partially because of this. This often means that files can still be accessed, especially if they are not binary.

F. Abyssal Recovery

What the developer says:

Abyssal Recovery can rescue corrupted or lost data from damaged, scratched, or defective CD and DVD discs. Abyssal Recovery can copy the files to another destination on your hard drive. Abyssal Recovery will skip the bytes which are not readable from file and copy all other bytes to extract maximum data. You can set the program to copy byte with byte to minimize the losses, or you can set a higher number of bytes to be copied once for a faster recovery.

Abyssal Recovery is a basic CD and DVD data recovery software that tries to rescue data from partially unreadable disks by copying all readable bytes to another storage device. It does not offer an advanced feature set as several of the other recovery solutions in this guide.

Verdict

Two of the tools in this review can be used to prevent data loss. Both CD Check and DVD Disaster offer the means to check data on disks regularly to ensure 100% readability of the data. DVD Disaster even offers a solution if data becomes unreadable.

For disks with corrupt data, IsoBuster is probably the prime choice. Even though it may make sense to use several tools for best recovery results.

Have you encountered unreadable disks in the past? If so, what have you done to recover the data on them?