[lnelson15]

Hey there,

How stupid can I be? Sometimes I wonder. I purchase EMC 9 as a download 3/20/07. I did not purchase the extended download or the CD. Until yesterday the files I had downloaded from Digital River after purchase were on my hard drive. Yesterday I elected to reconfigure my desktop, removing XP/Vista dual boot from the HDD and reinstalling Vista across the entire drive. I saved off my important files (Outlook.pst, the Roxio download files, etc. to a Drag to disc compilation using Roxio EMC 9, the Vista desktop and a DVD+R disc. I put about 2.2 gigs of files on the DVD no issue.....BUT I also put my copies of the Roxio EMC 9 installation downloads (both files) on the DVD. After reinstalling Vista I blithely put the DVD back in the drive and it was not useable without EMC 9 full product. So now I have a DVD+R Open, Multiborder, Data disc with two zones containing 2.2 gigs of data that I need and being STUPID, the software I need to access the DVD is on the DVD.

I got no response from Roxio customer service. Digital River customer service was unsympathetic neither offering a courtesy download or even the option of purchasing the backup DVD for $16. Both the purchase extended download and purchase backup DVD buttons were on the information page at Digital River, but almost immediately they fell off my information page and the only buttons left were the rebate and invoice buttons. SO my only option now is to get back my data is to have to purchase the full product again (the trial does not have the feature I used to without incident create the DVD) which I do not intend to do for any reason. I have purchase EMC 8 and 9 both. I have my copy of EMC 8 saved off on a burned .ISO image but this time I used what I thought was a non product specific feature that left me in the EMC 9 Catch 22 zone. I have my license information readily available from the Roxio website. I realize this was my mistake in the handling of the files, but with software that is relatively expensive I should have some recourse. I suspect that if I explain the situation to my VISA provider they will extract the funds for the EMC 9 purchase which they are quite capable of doing. I don't want that option. I just want another copy of the product which I can easily register with my product ID which I do have available online.

Is there any trial or other Roxio versions that have a functional DLA feature so I can get my files back available to anyone's knowledge.

Best regards,

Member of EMC 9 Catch 22 zone

[grandpabruce]

Maybe John@Roxio will drop in and offer some help to you.

[gi7omy]

You could try contacting customer services and ask if they will give you an extra download - they'll probably look for your purchase details but it's worth a shot

Moral, as I'm afraid you found out the hard way, is NEVER use Drag to Disc

[lnelson15]

I hear that...;-).

I can only hope.....DOH!

[Nerus]

Search or ask Sonic support for just their DLA Reader or some sort of packet data reader?
And I thought XP and above operating systems supports discs written by packet writers.
I'm most likely mistaking.

[Beerman]

I wonder if a program such as CDRoller would help. Never used it myself but I understand it to do things such as you need. If you try it and it works, please let me know.

[lynn98109]

Search or ask Sonic support for just their DLA Reader or some sort of packet data reader?
And I thought XP and above operating systems supports discs written by packet writers.
I'm most likely mistaking.

WinXP and above have built-in optical burning capabilites which work the same way as Packet-Writing (drag&drop), but are actually in the MUCH SAFER Sessions format. As my software guru observed, Microsoft didn't want to have to deal with the complaints from Packet-Writing.

Packet-Writing was developed in floppy-disc days as a temporary holding area for works-in-progress such as building webpages. It could also be used for transferring files from one computer to another when the original file was still safely on the originating computer. It was not intended as long-term backup, but common mis-understanding thought it was (I learned the hard way).

With CD-R and DVD/R and Flash drives being so cheap these days, there isn't much justification for learning the hard way what Packet-Writing isn't, but the misinformation about what it alledgedly is, is fairly widespread

WinXP and above do have a built-in .udf reader, but, as Digital Guru James_Harden explained to me, .udf is a file format separate from Packet-Writing. It is stable, and is used for things like commercial DVDs. It just happens Packet-Writing uses .udf, and so the confusion is further confused.

Lynn

This post has been edited by lynn98109: 14 May 2007 - 06:23 PM

[Nerus]

Bottom line, don't use it.

[lnelson15]

Hey there,

CD roller appears it might recover the files (must have the compression algorithm that Roxio uses that makes their version of UDF 2 unpalatable to Windows...just a WAG based on a little looking round and searches) for $30 dollars....sigh. It finds a plethora of files but the trailware will of course do nothing but tease. I have elected to probably not try to recover the DVD data and move forward. I have not given up totally but I am fairly sure nothing will be forthcoming from Roxio or Sonic Solutions/Digital River and my copy of EMC 8 (I am not sure if the DVD I created with EMC 9 would be readable with the Drag to disc version in EMC 8 either way) is 900 miles away. Being that the DVD is still open, the packet writer that did the work is probably the only one that will see the first border area clearly.

Actually DLA wrote the DVD without issue. I just did not realize it was proprietary. I am fairly sure with EMC 9 installed, I could access the DVD with no problems.

Best regards,

Lee Nelson

This post has been edited by lnelson15: 14 May 2007 - 08:26 PM

[lnelson15]

Hey there,

Lesson learned. I bought the backup product CD/DVD for EMC 9 Suite from Roxio/Sonic Solutons.

This thread can now be closed.

Thanks for any input.

Best regards,

Lee Nelson