Users sometimes have to deal with a situation where the CD stops opening. If important data is recorded on it, it becomes necessary to restore its normal operation or overwrite those files that are still possible to save to another medium.
Necessary
- - a clean soft cloth and toothpaste;
- - information recovery utilities;
Instructions
Step 1
Often the disc becomes unreadable due to trivial pollution. Fingerprints may remain on it, it may be placed where a glass of juice or coffee was just standing. As a result, the disc stops opening. Carefully inspect its surface - if there are traces of dirt on it, wipe them off with a soft cloth slightly dampened with water.
Step 2
The disc may stop opening due to scratches caused by both rough handling and defects in the drive. In this case, polishing the surface of the CD with toothpaste helps a lot. Apply some paste to a soft cloth and start polishing. Remember to polish only across the scratches! Usually these are movements from the center of the disc to its edges. In about half an hour of hard work, even a badly scratched disc can be brought back to life. Rinse it, dry it, wipe it and try to open it.
Step 3
If the described methods did not help, you should use special utilities that allow you to recover the maximum amount of information. To get started, use the AnyReader program, links to it can be found on the Internet. Run the program, select the appropriate recovery option, usually the first one - "Copying files from damaged media". Select this item, click the "Next" button.
Step 4
The program will try to open the disc and read the files. In the list that appears, check the boxes for the directories or files that you want to restore. Specify the folder where the recovered files will be saved and click the "Next" button. After the end of the copying process, the program will inform you whether it was possible to restore the data you selected.
Step 5
There are other utilities of this kind. For example, File Salvage, Max Data Recovery, NSCopy. If these programs do not help, try using the IsoBuster program. This utility allows you to recover data even from the most problematic disks. Its disadvantage is that it works slowly, so the program should be used only after all other options have failed. It is most convenient to run IsoBuster at night - waking up in the morning, you will be able to evaluate the results of the utility.
