Data recovery from damaged cds

[harrysanderson]

Hi there,

not sure if this is to technical a question, but i'm interested in attempting to recover whatever data I can from several severly damaged cds and dvds. many of them have gone beyond the point where they are even recognised by my cd drive. So my question is, would there be some kind of external, specialised cd-drive with accompanying software to analyse and format any remaining information from these disks. Any help much appreciated.

 

[erickg]

Not sure if this helps, but I somehow remember being able to use toothpaste (the plain white kind) to remove scratches from CDs. Google something like 'remove scratches from cd toothpaste'.

Also, check out:

http://www.wikihow.com/Fix-a-Scratched-CD

http://lifehacker.com/155741/macgyver-tip-fix-scratched-cds-with-toothpaste

 

[alphaod]

It used to use those disk repair things; I think the brand I used was Disc Doctor or something.

EDIT: I used to use SkipDR