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CD-RW cannot be read anymore

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pmonett

Programmer
Sep 5, 2002
2,632
FR
I have a CD-RW disc that I use to regularly back up data. The data is a lot of files of small size. I have the data on disk also, sorted in several dozen folders. Some folders contain several thousand files. All of this amounts to less than 500MB for the moment, growing steadily.
The issue I have is that I do backups regularly since the beginning of this project. The backups are all done on a CD-RW disk. What I write on disk I erase from the HDD. When I make a new backup, I take the data from the CD-RW, copy to HDD, add the stuff to archive and burn it all.
Well, my last archive done a month ago, it is now time to add another 100MB of data and burn a final CD-R.
Only I cannot read some of the data on the CD-RW.

It has given the first six directories and their contents, but the seventh directory is not accessible and neither are the others.
That is, I can read the directory of files fine, but when I try to copy one, it fails.
I am rather desperate here, some of these files I will not be able to recover by any other means without a lot of hard work and research.
Is there a way to work this issue ? I have the feeling that some of the folders got too big in terms of file entries. I am sure the disk itself is physically fine. There are no scratches or marks of any kind on the data surface. There is no problem with any other CD or CD-RW I have, so it is not the unit. If it is not the physical disk, it has to be the logical disk.
If I copy the CD-RW to an image, is there a way to read the image without burning another disk ? Could that solve my problem ?
 
Is it possible for you to try the CD-RW disc in another PC, preferably another burner?

I'm thinking that one of these may be the problem:
- dirty laser lens in your existing CD-RW drive
- corrupted table of contents (inner ring on disc) which stores the location for each sector of data - this would mean that it's lost
- though it may not be visible, there still might be a tiny mark or fingerprint causing the problem - best to clean the disc




~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein
 
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