[magusbuckley]

Hello:

I have Roxio Easy CD Creator on my PC at home. I had a CD-R in an old burner and made the CD a drag and drop drive. I backed up all kinds of important data on it. After formatting my drive, I can't get the software to recognize the CD.

I'm wondering if you all know of anything I can try to get this data back? I found some programs for download with free trials, but they all only work on Hard Drives. None of the programs I've seen will attempt to recover data from a CD. I'm sure I could send it somewhere...along with a FAT check, but the data isn't that important.

Any and all information will be greatly appreciated. Thanks,

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Are you sure you backed up your data? CD-RWs can be "added to", plain CD-Rs cannot. If you "dragged" your data to the cd drive, perhaps it was stored in a temp file that was wiped out when you reformatted? Try sticking the cd in another known working computer and verifying its contents.

Johanna

[Johanna]

Are you sure you backed up your data? CD-RWs can be "added to", plain CD-Rs cannot. If you "dragged" your data to the cd drive, perhaps it was stored in a temp file that was wiped out when you reformatted? Try sticking the cd in another known working computer and verifying its contents.

Johanna

[magusbuckley]

Hello:

I'm terribly sorry about that. It is a CD-RW that my data is on. It's not a CD-R as I said in my original post. :blush: I had the correct thing in my head at the time, I just typed in something else. Sorry.

At any rate; I have, in fact tried this CD in other PC's and am still unable to read the contents.

When the CD is in the drive...the whole computer goes haywire. Usually, the drive keeps spinning. If and when the drive icon becomes visible in "My Computer", you can't access the drive. It says, "Please insert a disk." If you boot the computer with this CD in the drive, the drive never showes up in My Computer. It's as if the drive doesn't even exist.

With one of those free drives I mentioned earlier, I was able to find that drive listed, but the contents of the CD were unknown.

Thanks for your help thus far.

[Johanna]

You can try uninstalling the cd drive from Device Mgr, rebooting, then letting XP "find" it. ("Found New Hardware" may want to do driver updates from the net then) and that may (but don't hold your breath) solve the problem with the cd drive, but there's not much hope for the cd. It sounds like the drive has been malfunctioning for awhile. If you can't read the contents of the disk on another computer, it's probably a coaster.

Johanna

[gerryf]

http://www.pcworld.c...fid,6944,00.asp

download and install the udf reader

[magusbuckley]

Thank you all for the help thus far.

grryf: I downloaded and installed the UDF reader as you suggested. I am running Windows XP SP2. The installation routine suggested that Windows XP includes a UDF reader and that installing the program could make my system unstable. I continued the installation routine any way. After rebooting, Windows disables the process and says, via a pop up notification from the notification area, that enabling the process will make the system unstable. This, of course, is just as the install routine suggested in the beginning. I clicked the notification for help and was provided a link to locate an updated driver. This driver, as it turns out, is Roxio's Easy CD Creator 7.1. This is a one-hundred dollar program.

Something has changed, however, in the way that the sytem reads this CD. If I try to boot the system with the CD in the tray, the boot process never takes me to the "Logon Screen". Instead, the screen goes black just after the PC loads the drivers. There is no system activity what soever. It just sits there. I am unable, during this time, to get that CD tray to open. I can only get the tray to open during POST of the boot process. If the CD is not in the tray however, everything works as it should so I'm eliminating the drive as a cause for this problem.

I would like to think the CD wasn't closed properly.....but if I had it setup for drag and drop I assume it wouldn't close anyway.

For now, it looks as if upgrading my software is going to be my last resort for fixing this problem. I fear, however, that this isn't going to work. If I wrote the CD with version 5.0, then that version should read the CD, right? I have no reason to believe that an upgraded software package would correct this problem.

If any of you can think of anything else I might try before purchasing this new program, I would sure appreciate the information.

For some reason, I keep thinking I'm going to need a data recovery prgram for this job though. Can any of you recommend a good one that works on CD's?

Thanks,

[magusbuckley]

More updated information....

I should also mention that before I formatted my system, I verified the contents of that CD. I always make sure my backup's are complete and readable.

The software, too, seems to be working fine. I had successfully created many CD's before this one. Since this incident occured I have been able to successfully create other CD's as well.

I'm thinking this will help us narrow the problem down to the CD.