Recover Pictures on CD

I had saved pictures on several CD's. They were saved on CD-r cd's. When looking at a specific CD some of the pictures were deleted and some were not. How can I recover the pictures? What caused my pictures to be deleted?
Appreciate your help!!!:cry:cry

Elise

 

:wave Welcome to Major Geeks! :major
Here at Major Geeks is an excellent selection of data recovery software. Many are totally free. However, if the pictures are not on the CD, they either were burned with strange attributes and are hidden, or they never were burned to the CD due to user error, faulty burning software, or a faulty CD burner. Files rarely just disappear from CDs unless the entire disc is damaged somehow. If the pictures were burned in several sessions (meaning that you burned some pictures one day, took out the disc, then put it back and burned more pics another day, and so on) then there's a chance that the previous sessions are on the CD, but aren't being seen for various reasons (technical reasons I don't feel like getting in to). Try the CD on a different PC with a newer CD/DVD drive (preferably), or try one or more of the many data recovery tools available at the link I provided above.
GOOD LUCK!!! Let us know how it goes!

[dlb]
:-D

 

dlb & reghakr,
Thank-you for your response. I went and found some software which I downloaded. Name of software Power CD DVD recovery. I am using it for free, as I wanted to make sure it did what I thought. It will scan the device for free and allow you to save a small amount of data. I did the disk scan and it listed the "deleted files". These were called UDF files in the file name field, but the file type did not show up in the file type field. How can I convert this to JPEG? Is it possible? I emailed the tech support.
Also was wondering -- I burned these files in XP and viewed them in XP on my old computer. Now I have a new computer and it has Vista, could there be a compatibility issue? Remember some of the files I am able to see on the CD and some I can not and the CD is a CD-r type.
Appreciate your help!confused
Elise

 

Are you using the same computer and CD drive that you used to write the files to CD to try to read them? That would be my recommendation.

Edit: I just reread the post. My guess is you didn't finalize the CD. Your old computer could read them because of its burning software. Do you remember the name of the program you used. I guess you don't have your old PC?

 

I'm not familiar with the program "Power CD Recovery". UDF is a term that means "Universal Disk Format" and was used primarily on early operating systems and early versions of Windows. It has more-or-less been replaced by the ISO system of CD burning primarily due to readability issues; discs burned with UDF can have problems being read on different PCs, on different CD drives, and sometimes even on the same PC (more info here). This is probably the problem you're having. I recommend trying to read the disc on the same PC it was created on, or try it on an XP computer. If you can read all the files, copy ALL of the pics from the CD to a folder on the desktop, then burn them to a new CD all at once. Check the burned CD on the other PC before you remove the pics from the desktop. Another option would be to try using your burning software to copy the entire CD. Most burning programs will allow you to copy the entire CD to an "image" file on the hard drive. They essentially create an exact mirror image of the entire CD and copy this image to a specialized ISO image file and then will store it on the hard drive. ISO image files can then be re-burned to a new CD (be sure to burn as an image, and do NOT burn it as a data file), or you can extract the ISO to a folder using TUGZip, or you can create a virtual CD drive and 'mount' the ISO so the PC thinks it's another CD drive; you can use MagicDisk to mount the image. You can mount and create images using Alcohol 52. You can create and burn ISO image files using ImgBurn. All the programs I've mentioned are 100% freeware, and are safe to use.

BTW- did you look through the Data Recovery section or the Back Up section here at Major Geeks? There's TONS of great programs available (many are free) and I'm sure something listed will help!

Good luck!!!

[dlb]
:-D

 

dlb - Thanks for the info. I will try.

Major Geek - I used my work computer to burn the CD. I then viewed files on my home computer. I can not remember the name of the software that I used to burn the CD. I know on the files on my CD existed because I saw them and actually copied picutres into files on my hard drive of my old home computer.

I will bring my work computer home with me tomorrow and try to read files on that computer. Fortunately we stillhave our old home computer as well.

I will keep you all posted as to what happens!!!!

 

Hello Everyone,
Thank-you for all your help. I recovered all my files. I brought the CD with the missing files to work and checked the CD on my old work computer and the files were there. My old work computer runs on XP and that was the computer that I originally used to burn the CD's. I am now in the process of moving files on to a flash drive and reburning onto a CD using my new home computer, which has Vista. This was a very strange problem, as when I orgianlly burned each CD, the files for that CD were burned all at the same time. Out of 5 CD's only one of them did not have any missing files when I checked each one on my new home computer. Each CD had some missing files as well as not missing files. When the files were missing they would be all the files associtated with a given folder.
Once again appreciate the help and guidance.
Elise

 

Congratulations! Good job.

Thanks for posting back. I had almost the identical problem years ago because of the UDF/packet format as dlb explained. I thought I had lost all my photos and several important scanned documents. I had chalked them up to experience when a year or so later, I was cleaning out a pile of CD discs and checking them on my computer to see if they were empty or ready for the trash. Lo and behold all my files were there. The difference was that I was using the old machine with the original burner and software installed. Don't know exactly how it happens but now I always check important backup CDs on a different machine before deleting the original files. I also like Nero for burning, as well as the free CDBurnerXP.

Glad things worked out for you.