Update: IsoPuzzle 1.6 - Recovery program for scratched damaged DVD Data-CD

[saulob]

The page with the link has been removed but the file is still there - it is fixed now!

marsoupilami, thanks for the mirror on your site.

the program is working fine with it :thanks:

[imatasion]

Great program and much needed! Unfortunately, I may have stumbled upon a serious bug (1). Also, here's a feature request (2).

(1)
My old WinXP reinstall disc (CD - 448MB), aside from the usual light surface scuffs, had gone really bad (don't ask me how). I used IsoPuzzle v.1.4 on it, starting on one computer, and continuing through 3 others until it was completely read (the last computer's drive was the best; it zoomed through those remaining tough-to-read sectors).

I burned the resulting .ISO to a CD-RW and attempted a test reinstall. At one point, I received a fatal-install message about an error from some file line-number. I looked into that file and discovered it was full of hex-zeroes. The same file from the original disc (easy to read, so it was not in a bad sector area) had all the proper data. Somehow, IsoPuzzle read the original disc sector, which contained this file, but didn't write the retrieved data into the restored image area.

Retrying the restore exclusively on that last computer produced the same results on the very same file. Finding and using your latest version 1.6 and trying the restore on that same last computer, again, produced the same no-data error in that same file.

Could you look into IsoPuzzle and see if you can find such a bug? As yet, I have not manually searched through my .ISO (on my test, rewritable CD) to find other missing-data files.

(2)
Is there any way for IsoPuzzle to temporarily disable Window's autorun of the source disc while "Cycle Tray" is active (and, of course, return it to it's normal state when Cycle Tray is unchecked or IsoPuzzle exits)? As you might guess, everytime the tray is cycled, Windows will run an autorun disc (which happened to me during this restore attempt).

Thanks for any help!

[imatasion]

After doing some experimenting while waiting for the author's reply, it looks like IsoPuzzle definitely has a problem. A little Internet searching brought up IsoBuster as good software for disc recovery. Running it on the system that most easily read my damaged disc, I was able to recover it with only a few "retries" for the difficult areas.

Reading and comparing information on the 2 recoveries showed IsoPuzzle clearly lacking in size of total blocks recovered.

<strike>IsoBuster v.2.3</strike> IsoPuzzle v.1.6 recovered .ISO file
file size - 474857472
blocks - 231864
block size - 2048

<strike>IsoPuzzle v.1.6</strike> IsoBuster v.2.3 recovered .ISO file
file size - 474859520
blocks - 231865
block size - 2048

And, at least in one instance (described in my previous post), IsoPuzzle didn't write into the recovery file what it had read from the disc. The final proof was using the recoveries -- IsoBuster's recovered disc worked, IsoPuzzle's didn't.

That's all I have for now. Until the author checks through these findings, I caution IsoPuzzle users not to rely on it exclusively for bad disc recovery.

[marsoupilami]

@imatasion
Thanks for your detailed description....
...but please keep in mind, that im working on this program in my free time!
I try to answer any question but there is no need sending pm, email and a two postings simultaneously - I am definitely not anyones hotline!

If you are satisfied with Isobuster feel free to use it and don't forget to pay for it!

If you are still interested in my answers to your previous questions let me know.
kind regards

[imatasion]

@marsoupilami

Hi. I reported what appears to be a serious recovery software error (glad to help!). A pm and later an e-mail were just to get your attention to the forum (I did notice how your postings tended to be months apart). I'm sure the posters here, who have relied on your software to recover their important data, wouldn't think that excessive. :) (Also, I should point out that my postings weren't simultaneous nor duplicated. Rather, a week apart, and as I discovered and reported additional findings. Nothing improper there, either.)

Don't get this wrong, but I hope there IS a bug and that you can fix it. Time permitting, of course. ;)

[blutach]

@imatasion

Please remember that ISOPuzzle is freeware and marsoupilami owes you (and everyone else), absolutely nothing. Whether people rely on ISOPuzzle to "recover their important data" or not, nowhere has marsoupilami indicated that he is there to provide support free of charge. In fact, explicitly, the readme states:

! YOU ARE USING THIS PROGRAM ON YOUR OWN RISK !
===============================================
By using this program you accept that no warranty of any kind can be given.
Neither functionality nor data integrity can be guaranteed.
The author cannot guarantee that this program is free of viruses, trojans,
spyware or any other harmful software.
The author cannot held responsible for malfunctions, data loss of any kind,
corruption of any other software installed on your computer, permanent
hardware damage or profit loss.

While I agree that you have not peppered the forum with multiple posts, it really is up to marsoupilami to respond or not. He has now indicated that he will reply when he gets round to it.

Regards

[marsoupilami]

Hi there - Don't worry! ;)
This is my 1st day back in the office (after x-mas) where I have fast internet access and more than one pc for testing something.
I agree, that it is really frustrating downloading a couple of programs only for discovering that they don't work properly.

I have tested all error conditions which I could imagine very carefully and I didn't touch the part of code which writes to the iso file since the earliest versions - thatfore I doubt hopefully that the described behaviour could be an Isopuzzle error.
The only bug I know currently is:
If you have more than 8 drives connected (both physical and virtual CD/DVD drives) the behaviour is unpredictable.
I never tested what happens but I guess it will crash - this will be fixed in 1.7.

As I understand all the erroneous 'zero-data' had been produced by the same (the last) CD drive.
Generally Isopuzzle relies on informations returned by the ASPI driver: drive status, read data, read errors etc.
Since wnaspi32.dll came along with Neros 'Burning Rom' (as long as W98 was supported) - I treat it as an 'error free' part of a well tested commercial product!
The most suspect part in my opinion could be the 'fast reading' drive itself (especially its fimware).
I remember an old combo drive which could 'read' everything errorfree - even a test CD with a black marked area!
I'll try to get it back for testing - but I expect random data instead of all zeroes.

What I think what could had happened is:
Is it possible that you accidentially didn't transfer both the *.iso an the *.flg file to your 3rd computer?
If you tranfered only the *.flg this would create an *.imp file which has to be 'imported' to your iso image. This would explain the 'zero data'.
Please search your disk for such an *.imp and let me know!

I cannot believe, that such an error - which I had never heard about - occurs twice...

Regarding your feature request I'm very sorry to disappoint you:
First of all I think all 'auto-whatever' are (really boring) Windows 'features' - Please understand, that I don't like to grab into registries and so on.
Last but not least I'm trying to keep IsoPuzze as much as possible independent to Windows versions - I cannot (and don't like to) buy and install a lot of different ones for testing purpose.
Thatfore I recommend to disable either the 'autoplay' function or the 'cycle tray' checkbox.

kind regards

[imatasion]

@blutach

I know all that, thanks anyway. ;)

@marsoupilami

To eliminate some debugging complexity, I'll ignore my initial results with multi and single drive recovery, on the now obsolete version 1.4. (BTW, I did correctly follow instructions on using multiple drives; you made it easy & convenient to do -- good design.)

I used the links from the first page of your thread to get the required software: IsoPuzzle-16.zip & wnaspi32.dll. These were expanded (as needed) and placed in an IsoPlay1.6 directory.

So, for repeatability testing, I again set up a "new install" of IsoPuzzle 1.6. It was run without changing the default settings, except to un-check "Allow Cooldown" and to set "Destination". The recovery ran quick with only a few retries.

Resulting IsoPuzzle 1.6 recovered ISO was 452 MB (474,857,472 bytes).

Again, the IsoBuster 3.32 recovered ISO was 452 MB (474,859,520 bytes).

Now, if I try to view the "empty file" (that bad-recover file) in 7-Zip, the file comes up empty. In IsoBuster, the file is "x" marked and it shows no data.

Here is something interesting!

The IsoPuzzle recovered ISO has the empty file is at sector 231864. In IsoBuster's viewer, that sector comes up as a "device error". Why? If I navigate backward, sector data shows normally. So the actual recovered sectors are 0 thru 231863 (or 231864 sectors). A full sector is 800h or 2048 bytes. 231864 x 2048 = 474,857,472 bytes. This is the recovered amount from IsoPuzzle's ISO. The missing file data comes from a sector outside the ISO!

However, the IsoBuster recovered ISO also has that file at sector 231864, but with it's data intact. Navigating forward, there are no more sectors -- it's the end of the ISO. So the actual recovered sectors are 0 thru 231864 (or 231865 sectors). 231865 x 2048 = 474,859,520 bytes. This is the recovered amount from IsoBuster's ISO. The file data exists because the ISO is big enough to contain it!

Conclusion? IsoPuzzle is not writing the final recovered sector into it's ISO. This is where you should start your code checking. These kind of "boundary errors" often show up in programming and it looks like it bit you, too.

Hope this helps. ;)

BTW, when you come out with v.1.7, I recommend you include a critical warning not to use any previous version, because of this bug.

[marsoupilami]

@imatasion - thank you very much for giving such a detailed description and spending that much time!

First I was a little confused because of your previous post (where the IsoPuzzle recovered file should be the larger one...).

I grabbed into the code and - No! I didn't make the beginners mistake of forgetting the last loop.
Obviously the Aspi driver reported disk size is a little sloppy - this is both disk and drive dependent!
The value in the progress field prints out the reported sectornumber 'as is' - also the greyed out field in 'force disksize' shows this value.
Besides - my 'force size' -> 'estimated' function has really an error: it detemines the last readable sectornumber which is size-1 - so I trusted both.:devil:

I could now simply add one to this number - I found out that some drives have the capability to read ahead beyond the reported size without an error but some do not!
The good news:
It seems that most images have at least one 'zero sector' at the end of the image - maybe that's the reason why!
E.g. Nero 6 (which I use) appends a lot of - I burned an image and 'isupuzzled' it and burned it again: it was growing and growing!

I'll try a workaround in the final 1.7 like reading ahead beyond the end of the disk with a few retries... what else should I do? (Oh how I hate things like this!)
For the next version I will look into the SPTI interface hoping that it is more reliable - but I expect this would require a little more time.

Btw I could fix the problem which was reported by Politken in beginning of September:
It can occur on a ripping attempt into a locked image file.

Thank's again and I'll keep your disable autoplay suggestion in mind - maybe someone can tell me a moretheless simple solution ;)
Nice weekend!

[setarip_old]

I'll keep your disable autoplay suggestion in mind - maybe someone can tell me a moretheless simple solutionJust hold down the "Shift" key while the tray recycles...

[JohnnyPintas]

Just hold down the "Shift" key while the tray recycles...

Thanks for a most usefull tip, it does indeed work :D

[[]]

[setarip_old]

Thanks for a most usefull tip, it does indeed workYou're quite welcome ;>}

[imatasion]

@marsoupilami

Hi, and sorry about the "cut & paste" typo showing ISOBuster having produced the 1-sector-short ISO file. I've edited that text to correct the mistake.

Also, sorry to see this may be a third-party problem (harder to fix). Well, here's some more information that may help:

The main test was on a Windows2000 system with a Lite-On DVDRW drive.

ISOPuzzle, with Nero's wnaspi32.dll (v.2.0.1.74), started the recovery stating 231864 sectors to fill (1 sector short of the actual amount). I searched the hard drive and found another wnaspi32.dll (v.1.0.0.14) from Acronis hard drive backup software, which I put in place of your recommended Nero version. Still, ISOPuzzle reported there were 231864 sectors to fill.

Then, I installed ISOPuzzle on a WindowsXP system with a no-name CDRW drive.

Again ISOPuzzle, with Nero's wnaspi32.dll (v.2.0.1.74), started the recovery with 231864 sectors to fill (still 1 sector short). I searched the hard drive and found another wnaspi32.dll (v.2.0.1.59) from Nero disc burning software, which I put in place of your newer Nero version. Still, ISOPuzzle noted there were only 231864 sectors to fill.

BTW, I looked into the ISOBuster folder but found no wnaspi32.dll. They must have implemented something internally.

To sum up, with 2 operating systems, 2 disc drives, 3 drivers, ISOPuzzle is still seeing 1 sector short. Just more sauce for the goose (as Spock would say in some Star Trek movie). :)


@setarip_old

The old "hold down the shift key" trick only works if one is watching the recovery. As some recoveries go on for many hours or even over night (hence the "cool down" check-box), that might not be practical. I'm afraid one must manually toggle Windows's "CD autoplay" option in those instances.

[marsoupilami]

@imatasion

Thanks for your findings - seems that's not a Neros bug...
If I misinterpreted the reported size ... shame on me!

What I found out during the weekend:
1.) Both Nero Aspi and Frog Aspi reports '0' for an empty disk while size for disks with content is one sector more.
2.) This 'extra' or 'hidden' sector is sometimes not present.
3.) This 'extra' sector is sometimes not readable by specific drives.

What I'm doing now - I hope this would be clean solution:
1.) This sector is included from now on.
2.) On starting up copy process this sector will be read first.
3.) If it is not readable at the first attempt a warning box pops up and the user can decide to limit the retries for this specific sector (if it's the only missing one).
This prevents senseless torturing the drive while keeping alive all other functions.

I don't know what IsoBuster does but I think it will use IOCTL interface.
As I stated in a previous post I'll play around a little with IOCTL in the future (as I know it is part of Windows but not available in W9x).

Currently I'm trying to find out if this sector often contains important data - until now it doesn't look like.
Even if this would be true it wouldn't be very helpful for you... I know.

However - I treat this missing sector as serious and will suspend my work on some new features.

EDIT: '1.7 Beta' is up now!

Sorry about the inconvenience and thanks for your time!:thanks:

[imatasion]

@marsoupilami

Thanks for all your work! I ran a (quick) test on my scratched disc and discovered the new beta has corrected it's missing sector problem. Hopefully, that also will handle the various disc-reading scenarios you described.

-

This last test recovery on my scratched-up disc went "quick". Why? I searched around for a disc-repair solution to make, if not for any other reason, the scratched disc easier to read for recovery. There a several commercial products (and home remedies) that claim to do the job. Over at Burning Issues (.net), CD Repair Kits - versus - various goops from kitchen & bathroom (http://www.burningissues.net/how_to/scratchrepair/scratchrepair.htm) has comparative tests and shows what actually works. Their conclusion? Brasso Metal Polish, available at your local supermarket or hardware store, beats them all in both results and price (under $3). I tried it on my disc. Three rubbings really reduced the scratches and made the overall surface like-new shiny. Better still, this time, ISOPuzzle read the entire disc without a single retry!

For this type of unreadable disc problem and Brasso, you may not even need ISOPuzzle! (Sorry.)

:)

[snn47]

@marsoupilami

So far I could not save any defective Disc but I am still trying out each new version.

I normally try four drives two slimline Pioneer DVR-K06, and Matshita UJ-824s, and a TEAC WD-50, LG 4167.

While three worked fine one gave me this message
"Loop 1 Read 255277 Error 0
Exit 0x0 0k"

I compared the ISO-files with windiff.exe and all are identical.

What does this mean?

[marsoupilami]

@snn47

Especially during debugging & testing the "log window" was very useful for me... obviously you turned it to "verbose" once:
Loop 1 Read 255277 Error 0
Exit 0x0 0k means: 255277 sectors read in 1 loop (no retries) with no errors.
Exit 0 is the return code "OK" of the copy task

Your files should be identical.
:)

[snn47]

Thank you,
I was confused because with the other drives I did not get this message just the exit and that the flagfile was deleted at the end.

I did not have any CD/DVD software installed except for DVD-RAM driver. When I have some time I will test isopuzzle with an naked-image xp-pro-sp2, where I have not even installed the DVD-RAM driver.

[laserfan]

...Brasso Metal Polish, available at your local supermarket or hardware store, beats them all in both results and price...The recent bumps caused this post to catch my eye. I too have used Brasso along with many other methods and I think it's (surprisingly) the best too.

[GrofLuigi]

Doesn't work on SATA for me. Shows Unknown Volume and reads all 0`s. I think it's due to the Nero Aspi. I tried also FrogAspi, that doesn't work even on IDE.

Anyone know a solution?

(I have 18000 sectors left to recover, on my big computer every pass yields 10-50 new sectors, and it's a torture for the drive even with cooldown - it has been running for 20 hours now).

GL

[snn47]

@GrofLuigi
I own two SATA drives and both work with isopuzzle, via the SATA controller or a SATA to USB 2.0 bridge, only with a bidirectional IDE to SATA bridge I have some problems which I have not been able to narrow down.



@marsoupilami

Over the past year I bought A LiteOn iHAS424 and a LG GSA H20, and received a few older ROM drives from a friend, but still no old Plextor drive 716 or older.

I ran additional tests over the holidays with all drives comparing Isopuzzle 1.7 to that of Isobuster professional version 2.6, and here is what I observed

- No drive was able to recover all my hard to read DVD.
While in average my Matshita provided the best overall results followed by my LiteOn and TEAC, there were some DVD on which the normally unsucessfull LG were more sucessful.
Some drives were never sucessfull.

- Some recovered ISO proved to be defective, when I play all contained mpg files, the playback stopped, while wthe ISO recovered from another drive worked.
While some drive provide “correct“ output in fact they do not . Prolonged reading provides more sectors read but not necessarily correct one.

- Isopuzzle also works with DVD-RAM.
Error correction responds on DVD-RAM not to well to fingerprints and dirt. I don’t know if this is also the case for normal DVD.

- You can’t recover what the drive is not able to read. In several tries I had my drives try it for a few days and still ~70000 sectors were missing, using a my slow Matshita slim-line drive I had an ISO in less then an hour, even with other programms .

- I still am not to shure how many sectors a DVD has if the drive does not provide a feedback. Furthermore while I have not read of any drive that is able to overburn, this might require a more flexible handling of ISO size as discussed below.

This brings me to the following questions

- Do you think reducing the speed of a drive might differ the results of the error correction?
I remember reading that some drives can even be made to read at 1x speed, but I have not tried if Nero Speed works.

- Is the error-correction dependent of the DVD specs detected by the drive or is this only of interest for burning DVD?

- Do you think it makes sense to compare images made with different drives of the same DVD.

So far I assume that different sectors that are more or less ok will have identical contense and could be identified by assigning a quality value (=number of identical reaults from different drives).

Hard to read sectors may differ from drive and error correction to drive and error correction.
If stored in a Matrix, only the identified hard to read sectors are the only ones that need to be verified on different drived, while those that remain identical on 2 or more drives would just improve the quality.

If the recovered information of e.g. n-drives is stored in an n-deep matrix, each read info x sectors wide and create the ISO out of the matrix rather then having to start a new iso. This way different ISOs could be created varying in number of sectors and which hard read sector result from which drive is used. Do you think such a Matrix-ISOpuzzle is workable?


Unlike ISOBuster, which operates more or less automatic only with a percentage as feedback, I’d say that Isopuzzle allows user to better judgement if waiting for a prolonged time seems promising or not. However neither ISObuster nor ISOpuzzle can guarnatee that the resulting ISO is ok.

[Ghitulescu]

I ran additional tests over the holidays with all drives comparing Isopuzzle 1.7 to that of Isobuster professional version 2.6, and here is what I observed

- No drive was able to recover all my hard to read DVD.
While in average my Matshita provided the best overall results followed by my LiteOn and TEAC, there were some DVD on which the normally unsucessfull LG were more sucessful.
Some drives were never sucessfull.
The best readers are the DVD-rewriters from LG. They beat by far any LiteOn, Matsushita or Teac (which are LiteOns). Older Pioneer (DVD-ROMs) are also quite good.
Nuance: there are several defects and disk types and thus there are many good drives, some are the best in reading pressed DVDs, other support the DVDRs better, also the LGs are more tolerant towards jitter, while the Pioneers can withstand scratches better.

While some drive provide “correct“ output in fact they do not . Prolonged reading provides more sectors read but not necessarily correct one.
Then either the FW is erroneous (it would yield defective data also on clean DVDs, it was a case with some drives not very long ago, in the same galaxy) or the data is beyond recovery (any reader would yield the same result).

- Do you think reducing the speed of a drive might differ the results of the error correction?
I remember reading that some drives can even be made to read at 1x speed, but I have not tried if Nero Speed works.
Yes.

- Is the error-correction dependent of the DVD specs detected by the drive or is this only of interest for burning DVD?
They're the same (for DVDs).

- Do you think it makes sense to compare images made with different drives of the same DVD.

Usually no, but it helps finding if one particular drive has problems in correctly extracting the data from a DVD.
If the recovered information of e.g. n-drives is stored in an n-deep matrix, each read info x sectors wide and create the ISO out of the matrix rather then having to start a new iso. This way different ISOs could be created varying in number of sectors and which hard read sector result from which drive is used. Do you think such a Matrix-ISOpuzzle is workable?

Yes.
Unlike ISOBuster, which operates more or less automatic only with a percentage as feedback, I’d say that Isopuzzle allows user to better judgement if waiting for a prolonged time seems promising or not. However neither ISObuster nor ISOpuzzle can guarnatee that the resulting ISO is ok.
No, it's the drive that guarantees that. ISOxuxxxx allows you to extract the best from your drive.

[GrofLuigi]

@GrofLuigi
I own two SATA drives and both work with isopuzzle, via the SATA controller or a SATA to USB 2.0 bridge, only with a bidirectional IDE to SATA bridge I have some problems which I have not been able to narrow down.
This is a laptop in SATA AHCI mode and nothing else (for example IDE emulation) selectable in the BIOS. :(

Otherwise, as for you other questions, in all discs I've recovered (around 10) there were no errors if IsoPuzlle said so - no bogus data.

And I still can't grasp the concept of different sizes (what to do exactly in that case). :stupid: :)

GL

[snn47]

@Ghitulescu

The best readers are the DVD-rewriters from LG. They beat by far any LiteOn, Matsushita or Teac (which are LiteOns). Older Pioneer (DVD-ROMs) are also quite good.

I can speak only for the recovery of the bad DVD with the DVD Rom and RW I tested with. My TEAC W50 is, except for the firmware, identical with Pioneer drive (PIO 106). My Pio 116 DVD-ROM was even worse, and while I have another SCSI Pio DVD-ROM, I lack a XP driver for my Adaptec 2930 SCSI controller to test it.

the FW is erroneous (it would yield defective data also on clean DVDs, it was a case with some drives not very long ago, in the same galaxy) or the data is beyond recovery (any reader would yield the same result).

Unless I have a flawless copy I wonder how I should establish which image was correctly recovered. In case of AV Files, e.g. mpg2 the player would just stop working once the reach the corrupt data from bad sectors or showed distorded video. If I have data files of unkown contense or when corrupt archives are involved I wonder how you propose to establish which ones are correct.

@GrofLuigi
And I still can't grasp the concept of different sizes (what to do exactly in that case).

If you look at marsoupilami reply from the 14th January 2008 reported sector may differ or not reported correctly. So I was thinking, independent if you "free set" the recovery for to few or to many sectors, you always would have to recover the DVD again and again if the ISO was not of the correct size. I thought it would be easier if you don't get the correct size reported by the drive, to grab all sectors from a DVD and be able to vary the ISO size by beeing able to adjust the number of sectors.


PS.: While I have enough corrupt or hard to read DVD, luckily I have information backups, but none of those DVD is a clone to the bad ones.

[Ghitulescu]

My TEAC W50 is, except for the firmware, identical with Pioneer drive (PIO 106). My Pio 116 DVD-ROM was even worse, and while I have another SCSI Pio DVD-ROM, I lack a XP driver for my Adaptec 2930 SCSI controller to test it.

Most Teacs are LiteOns, with some exceptions, I'm no longer a Teac fan (since they left the SCSI field). Sorry for my mistake.

Teac DV-W516D is Pioneer 108
Teac DV-W516GA is LiteOn 1653
Teac DV-W516G is LiteOn 1633

TEAC DV-W58G is LiteOn LDW-811S
TEAC DV-W58G-A is LiteOn SOHW-812S

The same for W512 and so on....

Your W50 has 2 versions, according to the end letter D (+-RW, Pioneer 106) or E (-R/W only, Pioneer 105).

[Boulder]

I cannot get ISOPuzzle working on my notebook at work (OS is WinXP SP3). I wanted to try to read a badly scratched DVD there as my home computer doesn't seem to be able to recover it. I've copied wnaspi32.dll to ISOPuzzle's folder but I still get "No drives detected" upon startup, after which the program crashes.

[Ajax_Undone]

Is this Project still alive???

If not is the source code available cause there are a few things I would like to change....

[setarip_old]

@Ajax_Undone

Try contacting the author at:

mailto:Marsoupilamis@Yahoo.Gr
http://www.geocities.com/marsoupilamis/

[Ajax_Undone]

Thank You setarip_old the email might work but website went out with Geocities this last year or so...

But Yes I will send an email...

Indeed thank you very much =;}

Here is his new site btw if anyone cares.. http://www.marsoupilami.esmartweb.com/

[marsoupilami]

Hi there!

Is this Project still alive???


I only know a minor bug which doesn't need to be corrected. (It leads to slow reading, if you need more than 30 seconds for selecting a filename :) )

The second and more severe problem is that some drives are not recognized by the program. The reason is unknown to me because all my desktops and laptops which are accessible to me are working fine. I don't even know if it has something to with SATA, specific drive types, windows drivers or whatever.

Please do not expect me to buy something on my costs even if the donations would be sufficient - and indeed they are not.


If not is the source code available cause there are a few things I would like to change....

Would you release the source for free?

p.s. yes, the geocites site is down since one year...

[mvBarracuda]

Would you release the source for free?
I would actually do so :-) The main question is: do you consider it?

[spotter]

I think you should consider making your log format compatible with GNU ddrescue.

[Ajax_Undone]

I would release the source under GPL, but of course that is me.

Respect always

~Ajax

[Ghitulescu]

I know this is a very old thread, and that IsoPuzzle appears not to be developed anymore, but still...

My problem is that I have a DVD that is badly scratched. Shortening a long story, I managed to read most of the DVD, yet the image is longer than the actual data. I tried every solution I came up but either it started anew or spit an error (sector mismatch). I simply want to skip certain sectors from being read, those part of the image but actually pointing at unburned sections, sparing my drive.

I know the solution is to set the sectors to "free" but this means it starts anew and I needed 2 weeks (yes, 14 days) rotating some 50 drives to reach the actual 80% (of which only some 2000-3000 sectors right at the beginning are the problem, the rest are those "fake" ones). As I said, the situation is extremely strange, de disc was really really severely damaged.... I fairily know now, only after those days, how long the image should be...

Is there any solution to set the sector numbers AFTER the image was created? Sort of Truncate/Trim etc...
If not, will be any plans to continue the development?
Maybe the sources? With docs?

PS: I tried:
- setting the sectors after - error
- setting the sectore before - starts anew
- setting the sectors to anything else than what was in the flg/iso - error
- copy/paste/rename/reuse shorter images - error or starts anew

I know these are mechanisms against the idiot user, and few people actually met the situation in practice where the drives provide erroneous infos (because of the errors in the LeadIn/TOC).

PS2: well, no, these are home movies, can't be bought again.

[maetel99]

If you have a scratched up disc, you can clean it up pretty well using auto scratch remover products such as "Formula 1 Scratch Out" or "Nu Finish Scratch Doctor". Just polish it repeatedly with the scratch remover and you can clean up most of the damage. Do a final clean with alcohol then you should be able to read out more of the data without so many problems.

[StainlessS]

Smokers toothpaste [and a little water] is sometimes recommended.
Either round and round in little circles [as for bulling military boots], OR,
out from center, lines radiating from center, not following rotary direction of tracks.
[scratches radiating from center can be recovered by error correction, scratches in
direction of tracks can defeat error correction]

EDIT: I used to have a hand wind up thing which spins disk to clean it up with some cleaning solution, with slightly abrasive pad.
In the UK, CEX, a 2nd hand [ie used] I.T. shop that sells used DVD's, etc, also has a powered device that
does the same thing as my hand cranked device, they say that if the disk you buy dont work proper, then
bring it back and they will [for 12 months] give you a free spin clean. Maybe if there are similar style shops in your
area, it might be worth enquiring if they have such a device. [I only tried it once after failed attempt at hand polish, it worked for me].

[Ghitulescu]

Thanks, but I asked for a software solution, not a "cleaning" one.

The disc is not scratched, it's a bad burn.
Usually I tested every disc, but after a while I considered it to be a waste of time, the only commoditiy I don't have plenty. In 20 years of burning I had only a couple of media that went defective straight off the burner - they were mostly the result of the buffer underrun, long time ago when the burners needed to have a constant flow of data, and windows 95 always interferred with. Burnproof technlogy was the greatest invention ever after the invention of the CDR.
And it worked, but after some 10 years, it's no longer readable.

It was a bad burn that is a burn that was close to the limits of readability already from the beginning. And I did not tested it. This is why goddess Fortuna hit me. It was a CMCMAG by the way.

I understand that the number of sectors of the imgae is stored, this is why I needed the sources, to know the offset and change it in a hex editor. Or the author can do this in the new version of the software.

[jpsdr]

From what i've heard, 10 years is the average lifespan of burned media, as they... i don't know how to translate properly... "decay"... over the time.
Pressed (not sure proper translation) don't have this issue. "Bad" disc may have other issue link ink on the printed face diffuse (again translation) and damage data layer. Otherwise estimated lifespan of pressed media is a lot higher (80 years..?).

So if your disc is around or more than 10 years old, it's "just" the end of his lifespan.
After loosing a lot of discs 10-15 years ago because of this fact i didn't know, now i always put on my disc the year it's burned.
And i redo them after 7 years.
Lost a lot of things, especialy family VHS film/record i've digitalised and put on DVDs around the begining of the first DVD burning, (i've done this at the end of the 90s if i remember). Now they are unreadable, and i'm not able anymore to digitalise the VHS source, should they still be avaible.

[Ghitulescu]

Yes, I know these, I burn since the first burners roared in the computer shops.

I did extensive tests before, and after a while I did tests only for each new brand, never had issues. I have CDRs from 95-96 that are as happy as bacj then, insignificant more C2s than fresh, and DVDRs from 2003-04 also with almost unchanged PI/POs.

It has to be a bad disc as none of its brothers from the same splidle exhibit such fatal error (the inner section, usually this happens at the outer rim section).

I know it's my fault that I did not test the DVDR for quality, but I was tricked into thinking it should be the same quality as the first disc of the spindle. This won't happen again :)

Now, this doesn't help me to extract the unique data (yes, another mistake).
I might end up with a totaly unrecoverable DVDR, which is highly plausible now, after some 50 drives of all makes (except BTC, which I have sold few years ago).
If this will happen, I might need to recreate the DVD again from the original tapes (capturing, editing, titling etc.).

Thanks for interests

[SeeMoreDigital]

My problem is that I have a DVD that is badly scratched.

Smokers toothpaste [and a little water] is sometimes recommended.
Either round and round in little circles [as for bulling military boots], OR, out from center, lines radiating from center, not following rotary direction of tracks [scratches radiating from center can be recovered by error correction, scratches in direction of tracks can defeat error correction]

Thanks, but I asked for a software solution, not a "cleaning" one.

The disc is not scratched, it's a bad burn.But, but, but... What? [rhetorical].

[Ghitulescu]

It is not scratched - I thought it is, but when I took it out and looked at it it wasn't.
It was too late to change the subject.
As I said, I rarely have bad burns so I wrote it was scratched as it was the most plausible explanation.

[ReinerSchweinlin]

dvdisaster follows a similar approach, maybe it is able to recover some of your stuff:
https://www.heise.de/download/product/dvdisaster-22039