# Recovering files from DVD backups

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovering-files-from-dvd-backups/398395>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 2, 2007, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovering-files-from-dvd-backups/398395 "2007-04-02T07:24:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2007, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovering-files-from-dvd-backups/398395/1 "2007-04-02T07:24:22Z")

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So I reformatted my laptop today and installed a fresh copy of Winblows XP. Beforehand, I backed up my photos, music and files onto some double-layer DVDs.

When it came time to return them to their rightful places in my ‘My Documents’ folder, however, I repeatedly get “cyclic redundancy errors” on certain files.

What is causing this, and how can I make sure that I get all my files back?

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**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2007, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovering-files-from-dvd-backups/398395/2 "2007-04-02T07:29:01Z")

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[QUOTE=CynicalGabe]  
So I reformatted my laptop today and installed a fresh copy of Winblows XP. Beforehand, I backed up my photos, music and files onto some double-layer DVDs.

When it came time to return them to their rightful places in my ‘My Documents’ folder, however, I repeatedly get “cyclic redundancy errors” on certain files.

What is causing this, and how can I make sure that I get all my files back?  
[/QUOTE]

That’s usually the sign of a bad burn or otherwise damaged disk. You’re going to need to find some data recovery software to get your stuff back. I personally can’t recommend one, but you can google out there for it or wait for someone with experience resurrecting DVDs to pop in.

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**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2007, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovering-files-from-dvd-backups/398395/3 "2007-04-02T07:41:52Z")

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I’ve heard of this program, but never used it:

[Isobuster](http://www.isobuster.com/).

edit: I should add, the basic download is free. There’s also a pro license you can get for it, but I’m not sure what the difference in the featureset is between the two.

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**Author:** ![Bertram](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@Bertram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bertram)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2007, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovering-files-from-dvd-backups/398395/4 "2007-04-02T12:58:44Z")

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[ul]  
[li]Make sure the surface of your DVD is perfectly clean: no fingerprints, no smear, no dust[/li][li]try to read the DVD in another drive[/li][li]use a software to recover at least some of your data: _Isobuster_ works quite well, so do _BadCopy Pro_ and _CDRoller_.[/li][/ul]

Burn results are usually far from perfect, you always have a certain amount of PIE, PIF and jitter, which means that the error correction of your drive is constantly at work while reading any DVD, including the ones that were produced professionally.

And even if your DVD works perfectly well _at first_ an almost bad burn (a lot of errors but not quite enough to produce an unreadable result) could reduce its life expectancy significantly: a little bit of sunlight might add the couple of additional errors to render it useless.

So what to do?

[ul]  
[li]make sure that DMA is enabled (if you use Windows)[/li][li]use media that work well with your drive[/li][li]burn your DVD with a speed that produces as little errors as possible[/li][li]while burning, don’t use programs that interrupt the burn process constantly even if your drive has the ability to still produce readable results (all memory hogs should definitely be avoided)[/li][li]upgrade the firmware of your drive[/li][li]test the result even if the software brags that the burn process was a success.[/li][/ul]

Good luck with your DVD!