Udf Files

[supertramp2u]

Hello. I am rather new to this but I could not find any information as to how fix my problem. I am long winded so I will try and keep this short. I have several disc that I had scanned old photos and put them on a disk because a few years ago you could not buy a computer with the memory that you can purchase now so I put photo files on disk to save room on my hard drive. Cool idea! Soon we upgraded probably several times to new computers, programs, etc. Now I have several disk that I can not view on any of our computers. Put the disk in and either the disk is not found or an error message pops up that may say the disk is full and is read only or it tells me it is a UDF file (universal disk format) would I like to search the internet to find.........blah..blah...blah. I would choose yes and it would find all kinds of files but no programs that I can purchase and download that will allow me view my files. The reason I am writing this now, is there a program that I can buy and download on my new ultra modern computers, that will allow me to view my old disk? I know, redundant, but I am so aggravated, that would be like re-scanning about a thousand photos and that's another problem, I have two scanners, both are scanner / printer combos and the software for them will not load on to my new computer so now I have to buy an ultra modern scanner just to scan photos and some of the photos have already been shredded because they are customer proofs I no longer needed. I am so frustrated. Help.

[d_deweywright]

I would suggest you try something like ISOBuster (link) to try and recover your files. I believe the free version will tell you what it can find and thinks it can recover, but you have to buy it to actually do the recovery. (Standard disclaimer: I have no connection with the creators of ISOBuster and receive no remuneration for suggesting the use of their product.)

 

Are many of your discs CD-RW (erasable) discs? In the past, they were found not to have great longevity, and most people in the know, shied away from them for long term storage. And even the estimates of durability for CD-R (write once) discs were probably overestimated in a lot of cases, especially if they were not stored under good conditions.

 

I fear you will find that many of your scanned photos will be unrecoverable, but I'll gladly be proven wrong. So give one of the recovery programs a try and let us know how you make out.

 

As for old hardware with no new drivers, that sort of goes with the territory. If you still have an install disc for an older version of Windows, you could create a VMWare session using the free VMWare Player, and run that inside your newer version of Windows, and there's a pretty good chance it'll let you connect with your older hardware and run it.

 

Hope that helps!

[Jim_Hardin]

Of course the UDF (universal? data format) is normally associated with 'Packet Writing'.

 

Roxio used to have a Packet Writer program but when Windows finally started offering it as an integral part of their OS in Windows XP Roxio dropped it!

 

Of course the hands down winner of data loss was Packet Writing

 

As Dave pointed out, they may also have deteriorated beyond use as RW media fades over time and even cheaper R media can suffer!

 

The ISO Buster is good but what other tools do you have? Do you have anything Roxio?

 

Try them on different drives too, a weak drive coupled to a weak disc can equal unreadable