Unfortunately CDs and DVDs aren't nearly the permanent storage medium they've been made out to be. The dyes that are used can degrade over time depending on temperature, chemicals in the atmosphere moisture and heat among other factors. The commercially made optical disks are better than home burned, but neither should be depended on for very long.

There are a few of really good Disk recovery programs that can sometimes recover almost everything from optical media that that have become unreadable over time, (they will also recover files from disks with sessions that have been left open), one is called ISO buster.

It's what I'd call test ware. You can download a copy install it and it will tell you if there is anything recoverable on the disk. To actually do anything useful like recover anything but the smallest files with it you have to actually pay the license which was quite reasonable when I bought it. I haven't used it in years however, and I think that it was Windows only.

I'm sure there are others similar that run on Mac as well. You have to be careful though, a lot of the so called recovery software available for download won't work if the disk cannot be read by the operating system. ISO Buster could read disks that the OS didn't even recognize as existing.

On 2/3/2017 11:04 AM, David J Brooks wrote:
seems it is now intermittent sometime they work sometime they don't.
Sessions should all be closed and they were burned on the iBook G4
using Roxio Toast. The CD's seem fine.

Dave

On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 2:38 AM, Anthony Farr <[email protected]> wrote:
Your discs could be unfinalized. This is convenient if you want to add
files to a disc in multiple sessions or if you only ever read them on a
single computer, but is a problem when you want to read discs on a
different machine, such as in the future when you've retired the computer
or drive that originally burned the discs. Hopefully you can close the
sessions and finalize the disc, even without the original hardware or
software.
http://www.cd-info.com/howto/finalize/


regards, Anthony

On 3 February 2017 at 10:35, David J Brooks <[email protected]> wrote:

I did have DVD success last month when i did one or two of them.
Perplexed for sure.

Dave

On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 6:32 PM, David J Brooks <[email protected]>
wrote:
Way back when i stored my picture files on CD's or DVD's. When i
replaced my aging PC with the current iMac i took the old HD out
bought a case and pulled files from it when needed. This drive is now
failing so i decided to put all of my CD's and DVD's on my new 1TB
external. I did the CD's first and all is going well however now that
i'm onto my DVD's all is not well in Casa Del Brooksie. I keep getting
" you have inserted a blank DVD what do you want to "???? and i get 3
options non of which is to open files. these are definitely recorded
DVD's.

Am i screwed.??

Dave

--
Documenting Life in Rural Ontario.
www.caughtinmotion.com
http://brooksinthecountry.blogspot.com/
York Region, Ontario, Canada


--
Documenting Life in Rural Ontario.
www.caughtinmotion.com
http://brooksinthecountry.blogspot.com/
York Region, Ontario, Canada

--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
[email protected]
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and
follow the directions.

--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
[email protected]
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.




--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
[email protected]
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Reply via email to