[plain Bill]

Hi!

Have a rather ugly problem here. Hope you can help me...

I had a CDRW with lots of documents in my drive. All the time, when I logged on (after restart oder standby) or inserted the disc, I got the message "Sonic DLA can read files but cannot edit or add to them". That's fine with me, coz I just needed the pdf's on the CD.
This morning however, right after login, this Sonic DLA suddenly decided to format the CD RW, and now all the data is lost - at least that's what Windows' saying (blank CD with 0 kb). It didn't ask me if I want to format, and it didn't stop the formating until I literally wrenched the drive open.

1. Why does it format the CD without asking?
2. Why is there no cancel button for formatting?
3. How do I get my data back?

System:
Win XP SP2
DLA Version 1.04.08a
the CD was burned Feb 08, round about 500 MB.
I'm not a Administrator on the machine.

I don't even use DLA. So why??? And of course (Murphy) that's the only version of the CD we have, and my boss is not very happy.

I know this sounds funny, but I didn't do nuffin (I bet everyone is saying this). Please help me.

Thx
Bill

[Brendon]

Hello Bill,

(1) I don't know. Most people have quite a job to get it to format a disc. I've never heard of it doing that unasked - what indications on screen did it give you that it was formatting?

(2) Once the disc format process is started there's no going back. A quick format initializes the system areas of the disc quite quickly, and stopping an optical disc in the middle of a process is likely to make the disc unusable.

(3) It's very likely you don't get your data back, for the reason given above. You could try with Isobuster or CDRoller, but I've only found them useful for discs with some errors, rather than discs which have been formatted.

If DLA was telling you things about the disc each time you logged on or inserted the disc, then it's likely the disc was one specially formatted by DLA, and 'closed' after writing which prevents edits or additions. You may not have been able to read the disc without DLA operating on the system.

You should never have your only copy of an important file on an RW disc, especially not one formatted for packet-writing. [DLA, Drag-to-Disc, InCD, etc.]

Regards,
Brendon

[plain Bill]

Hi Brendon,

right after logon to Windows there was a small popup, stating sth along "Sonic DLA is formating. It's using quick format. it could take some time. please wait" underneath was a progress bar. No Close or Stop Button. I didn't even started the mailprogram at this moment.

For Isobuster I need to be Administrator, so I have to wait till my Admin comes in.

I got the CD from my boss, and I didn't know it was the only one (he told me now that the company doesn't exists anymore). Unfortenately he can't remeber which program he used for burning, so no help there.

I never heard of something like DLA before. I dismissed the messages as some Windows thing, you know like the autoplay, which is very annoying. But I know that the CD could be read in other computers, and I had a look now - no DLA on those.

So in the end - the devil knows why it formatted, and Murphy states that I can't recover anything.

Does someone lese have any ideas? And how do I prevent sth like this? Uninstalling? I have some more CD's and I'm a tiny bit scared of losing those also...

Thx
Bill

[Brendon]

Hello Bill,

Yep, that's formatting all right. I wondered if it was some other sort of write which destroyed the Table of Contents, but it obviously wasn't from what you say.

I still have no idea why the system should start formatting without provocation like that!!

You should check that the other CDs you have can be read by the other machines without DLA installed. If they can and they're important, I'd have copies made. If they're RW discs you should definitely have copies made onto CDR [writeonce] discs. A proper [non-DLA] copy of a disc on CDR is a CD-ROM, and can't be overwritten.

If the discs can't be read on other machines then you have a bit of a tricky situation. You'll need to read the files for each disc onto the hard drive, and them write them to CDR with an application such as RecordNow or Easy Media Creator or Easy CD Creator [- not DLA] which will write standard CDROMs onto unformatted discs.

Once you've rewritten any DLA-formatted discs and don't need DLA any more, it could be uninstalled if management okays that.

Regards,
Brendon

[plain Bill]

Hi Brendon,

I'm still trying to get my data back. Isobuster did find some data (600MB) which is roundabout ok. So it seems it really just destroyed the file table. Unfortenately, I get the data as an image file (*.ibq), and I can't export the files coz I'm not registered, and getting the company to buy a registration is at the moment impossible. Do U have a registration for Isobuster I could borrow (just joking )


The problems with the CD I still have I'll tackle later.

Thanks very much for Ur help,

cheers
Bill

[lynn98109]

If you're in as much hot water as it sounds, seems to me it would be possible to pay for it yourself.

Lynn

[d_deweywright]

Hello Bill,

Yep, that's formatting all right. I wondered if it was some other sort of write which destroyed the Table of Contents, but it obviously wasn't from what you say.

I still have no idea why the system should start formatting without provocation like that!!

<snip>

Regards,
Brendon

Just a thought, but if DLA was installed, and it happened to come up and read the disc as being blank, then it might be set to auto-format a blank disc when detected. If the disc was written with a different packet writing application, or even just a different version, then that could cause it to come up with the "Read Only" message. RW (erasable) discs have been known to become unreadable over time.

[plain Bill]

Just a thought, but if DLA was installed, and it happened to come up and read the disc as being blank, then it might be set to auto-format a blank disc when detected. If the disc was written with a different packet writing application, or even just a different version, then that could cause it to come up with the "Read Only" message. RW (erasable) discs have been known to become unreadable over time.

I found this in the registry under HLM\Software\MS\Win\CurVer\Run
dla = C:\WINDOWS\system32\dla\tfswctrl.exe
At least now I know that this is running, but I can NOT kill this process

Bill

[Brendon]

Try FileAssassin to bump off the nasty process. http://www.malwarebytes.org/fileassassin.php