[willyg]

I have a cd of mp3 files that are organized into 7 folders. I have a problem with 3 of the folders. When I try to play a song in one of these 3, part of a song in another folder actually plays. I'm thinking that something is messed up with the TOC for these folders and that the files themselves are still OK even though I can't get to them. I've tried the demo versions of a number of media recovery apps, but I either have the same problem with the 'recovered' file or the demo version will only identify problems and not recover them.
Before I spend money on a package, I would like to know or at least have a strong idea that it is going to work. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Bill

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well toc is table of contents. If it messed up during the burn and you can't read the info properly then there isn't anything you can do. All I can recomend is to see if you can copy the information from the cd to the hard drive. at that point you can actually do something about the files.

Once a cd is written (unless its on read/writable media) then its permanment. no amount of data recovery software will work. It has to do with the way the cd was created.

[starjax]

well toc is table of contents. If it messed up during the burn and you can't read the info properly then there isn't anything you can do. All I can recomend is to see if you can copy the information from the cd to the hard drive. at that point you can actually do something about the files.

Once a cd is written (unless its on read/writable media) then its permanment. no amount of data recovery software will work. It has to do with the way the cd was created.

[GrayGhost]

Hello,
what recovery tools have you tried so far? A good one is the PC Inspector. Not as good as Ontrack Easy Recovery, but it is free and worth to give it a try.

[starjax]

not to mention ontrack is very expensive.

[willyg]

Thanks for the replies. I'm not sure if the problem occurred during the burn since I think I've played mp3's from the problem folders in the past. The tools I've tried so far(Isobuster, CD data rescue, PCI file recovery, etc.) copy the folder to the hard drive and do the file recovery there. But so far I just end up with the same result as when playing the mp3 from the CD. I'll poke around for the PC Inspector and give that a try.

[willyg]

Oops, my bad, PCI file recovery IS the PC inspector you mentioned.
I was able to confirm my suspicions using ISObuster. The CD was recorded in 4 sessions, with the final folder being added in the last session. In looking at the LBA(logical block address) for each of the 7 folders, I see that LBA range of that folder #7 'overlays' the addresses in folders #4-6. With some simple addition/subtraction I am able to 'predict' which mp3 file in the final folder will play when a particular file is selected in the previous 3 folders.
Since it is a write-once CD I would assume that the files in folders #4-6 weren't physically overwritten, just their logical pointers re-used. No luck so far in finding a way to recreate them.