help please

  • Thread starter Thread starter humbll
  • Start date Start date
H

humbll

I have a dell laptop which i wanted to reinstall the operating system on, so
i copied all my personal files including email etc onto some sony rewritable
cd's. After writing them (by using the drag-n-drop method) onto the cd I
opened several files on each cd to verify they were copied sucessfully. After
convincing myself they were all there and working, i went ahead with the
format of my hard drive and reinstalled windows nt. Everything went smoothly
until it was time to put my personal files back on the hard drive, when i
discovered that only 1 of the 3 cd's could be read by the drive, the other
two showed a single entry "unallocatable space". I got a hex editor and
looked at the discs, there is definitely data on them, as i recognize the
folders i created and the files in them. any ideas how to get the data off
the discs and back in working order would be much appreciated.
 
After dragging and dropping them, did you do anything else, like tell
windows to write them, or were they already written?

If they were already written, then there was a packet writing application on
your computer, perhaps InCD as part of Nero. In that case, the first disk
was possibly closed in a compatible mode whereas the other two were closed
in a space-saving packet writer software only mode.

So, if that's the case, you would just need to install the same packet
writer software, and you could read them again.

If that's not the case, then you would need recovery software. IsoBuster is
one to try. The free version doesn't work on packet-written disks, so you'd
have to buy it. You could check to see if it's returnable first.
--
Ed Light

Bring the Troops Home:
http://bringthemhomenow.org
http://antiwar.com

Send spam to the FTC at
(e-mail address removed)
Thanks, robots.
 
Update: IsoBuster without the paid license will still find UDF files,
especially with the find missing files and folders command -- but it won't
extract them without a license. However, you can find out if it sees the
files for free.


--
Ed Light

Bring the Troops Home:
http://bringthemhomenow.org
http://antiwar.com

Send spam to the FTC at
(e-mail address removed)
Thanks, robots.
 
humbll said:
I have a dell laptop which i wanted to reinstall the operating system on, so
i copied all my personal files including email etc onto some sony rewritable
cd's. After writing them (by using the drag-n-drop method) onto the cd I
opened several files on each cd to verify they were copied sucessfully. After
convincing myself they were all there and working, i went ahead with the
format of my hard drive and reinstalled windows nt. Everything went smoothly
until it was time to put my personal files back on the hard drive, when i
discovered that only 1 of the 3 cd's could be read by the drive, the other
two showed a single entry "unallocatable space". I got a hex editor and
looked at the discs, there is definitely data on them, as i recognize the
folders i created and the files in them. any ideas how to get the data off
the discs and back in working order would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...

Laptop optical drives often are not that great. It's very possible that
the CD's would be readable by a high-quality desktop CD/DVD drive (a
Plextor if you can find one...but any would be worth trying). You could
then reburn the data.

If that doesn't work, try ISObuster, like Ed says, but with a desktop
drive if possible.
 
humbll said:
I have a dell laptop which i wanted to reinstall the operating system
on, so i copied all my personal files including email etc onto some
sony rewritable cd's. After writing them (by using the drag-n-drop
method) onto the cd I opened several files on each cd to verify they
were copied sucessfully. After convincing myself they were all there
and working, i went ahead with the format of my hard drive and
reinstalled windows nt. Everything went smoothly until it was time to
put my personal files back on the hard drive, when i discovered that
only 1 of the 3 cd's could be read by the drive, the other two showed
a single entry "unallocatable space". I got a hex editor and looked
at the discs, there is definitely data on them, as i recognize the folders
i created and the files in them. any ideas how to get the data off the
discs and back in working order would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...

See if CD/DVD Diagnostic can get the data back.
http://www.infinadyne.com/cddvd_diagnostic.html

They offer a full refund if it cant.
 
Back
Top