Not reading data on CD

  • Thread starter Thread starter MikeC
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M

MikeC

Help - I scanned a bunch of photos on my sons pc (Windows
98) put 'em on a CDR using his new burner and now MY pc
(WinXP) says there's nothing on the CDR. I went back to
my sons pc and could see them using windows explorer. I
tried my pc again and could see them when I opened Roxio
and improted the session - but windows explorer STILL
doesn't see them. I never had this problem before when
he was using his old burner - but it crapped out
yesterday and I replaced it with a new one.

Any suggestions?
 
Download a free program called ISOBUSTER, which can read more types of CD
formats than can Windows Explorer. Play with its (few) option sot see what
reads the CD and thereby determine its format. Do not write that format in
the future, if you want to read it via explorer. ISOBUSTER can also extract
files from an oddly formated/damaged CD back to hard drive.

As a specific example, I once accidentally write a DVD in UDF format. That
was the default (for data DVDs) in Easy CD Creator version 6. Explorer
could not read it. ISOBUSTER could read it all, and it indicated that the
format was UDF. I changed the default writing format to Joliet (also a good
one for CDs), wrote a new DVD, and then explorer could read it all.

The other way to write CDs is via drag-n-drop, which uses a variation of UDF
(not the one I mentioned above in my DVD problem). In this method of
writing you need ot pre-format the CD. Therafter explorer will treat it
almost like a large floppy disk. Of course, this only works for re-writable
CDs (i.e., CD-RWs). Personally I find UDF less reliable than plain data CD
writing. I often write CD-RWs as data CDs, then erase them via Easy CD
Creator (disc --> erase function), then re-write them.
 
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