4 replies to this topic

[patswill]

I have burned a dvd with roxio creator basic 9.  Explorer and Roxio shows 3.1 GB of data, but it will not allow me to see the data or explore it.  

Any ideas?

[grandpabruce]

What program, in that OEM version of yours, did you use?

[Brendon]

What file system does Explorer show for your disc?

[patswill]

I used Creator Basic to create the DVD.  And when i do properties of the DVD, it shows UDF as the file system.  If i just look like you did above in explorer, it says Drag files to this folder and add them to the disc.

It's weird, I did a disc copy of the DVD in questions.... it copied 3+GB of info - and still won't let me see it.

[Brendon]

It looks very much as if you have formatted the disc before dragging your files onto it. That makes a UDF disc and uses a system called "packet-writing" to put the files there. You'll probably have a large Roxio disc icon about an inch by inch and a half down at the lower right corner of your screen.

The top one of my two drives - "Backups" shows CDFS, the CD File System, and that's what a data CD or DVD should show.
The lower drive - "The Thirteenth Floor" is a video DVD, which uses a special UDF format.

Now the problem with this 'format and then drag the file to disc' packet-writing system is that [1] it's not standard and it needs a special reader to view it with, and [2] if often gets its knickers in a knot and breaks the viewer so you can't see what's on the disc or get any of the data off. The experienced users on this forum strongly recommend that you don't use the packet-writing system unless you really have to, and unless you know the risks and have enough expertise to fix the things which will go wrong.

Okay. If you have data on that disc that is vital and you don't have other copies [always verify a backup before you delete the original] then you will need to get a utility like IsoBuster from IsoBuster.com, or CDRoller from CDRoller.com to try and recover the data. These utilities have trial versions which will show you what files they recover, but you'll have to BUY the utility to actually recover anything.

Now, How you SHOULD make discs.
You have a cut-down version of Easy Media Creator 9, I think. In the DATA section of the Home menu you should have an item "Data Disc". That is the one to use, using an unformatted disc.

That application will make standard data discs [CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs] that can be read in any PC without needing a special reader.

Hope this helps.