Hello,

I used to use Roxio Drag-to-Disc to backup files but when I tried installing Easy Media Creator 8 (I think. I don’t have the CD on hand but it was orange) on my new computer to read an unclosed disc of mine, the program locked up. Also tried installing on my Toshiba laptop with the same result.

Some Googling brought a few solutions. CDRoller detected all of my files on the CD so I know they’re okay, but without the registered version it’s useless. I don’t want to pay $30 for a program I’m only going to use once to restore a handful of HTML files and some images. I also tried downloading the Adaptec UDF reader and that, I think, messed up my computer because after reboot XP would not load normally and had to be reverted back to last working config. I’m not even sure if the UDF reader is installed or not.

Are there any free or limited CD data recovery programs out there? Or other possible fixes for this?

After 4 years this is the first time I’ve had a problem like this, but I don’t think I’m going to be using Drag-to-Disc ever again.

Thanks for any help.

Xp already has a built in UDF reader so installing another may have caused that problem.Do you have any other programs on your computer that have an app that does packet writing (Nero InCD,Sonic DLA)?If so trying to install another could have caused that problem.You can only have 1 at a time on any system.

That’s probably not a bad idea anyway. I used to use DirectCD to copy files onto cds instead of always burning and erasing and burning and erasing RWs. That stopped when my formatted disks all slowly began to die and I lost the data. Now I've learned about how unreliable packet writing software is and don't plan on using them anymore. I personally use a half-gig USB jump drive instead. Works on any computer with a USB port (basically all computers) and it is much more reliable. Granted, they are more expensive than a single RW cd, but they are way more useful and user friendly in my opinion.

Anyway, about trying to get your data back, if available you could try sticking your disks into another computer. You might be able to copy the files off of the disks from there and send them to yourself via internet/USB drive/Burning another normal cd/dvd. Unless the disks themselves are toast like mine were.

Packet-Writing (Drag2Disc, DirectCD, Nero's InCD, Sonic's DLA, etc) is best used for permantly LOSING all data. You can speed the loss by using RW media. (Been there, done that.)

Packet-Writing can be very fussy about being read, insisting on the exact same Operating System and Packet-Writing Version as was used to write the discs. It can also fail for any reason, or none at all.

Also, there are 3 kinds of discs:

• professionally pressed media, where the pits and lands are physically pressed into the metal
• R media, where the pits and lands are created by "cooking" a dye with the laser
• RW media, which have the pits and lands created by a laser (at lower temperature) melting and recrystalizing an aluminum alloy - which promptly starts to de-crystalize, taking the data with it

I'd suggest, if you used RW media and can't have the disc read somewhere else and send it back to yourself as Liqvid suggested, that you decide if you want the data enough to spring for CDRoller - before the CD-RW finishes fading beyond the point that even a recovery program can't recover it.

(And not using Drag2Disc or RW media for anything you want to KEEP is an excellent idea )

Lynn