Anyone know of a decent utility, preferably free or available for a 5 fingered discount, that can recover data from knackered CDs? Where I work uses Visual Studio 2005 Upgrade CDs but someone borrowed them and now they just give read errors. Microsoft told him to bugger off when he asked about getting replacement CDs though I'm not keen on them paying another $500 for another copy when they already own the licenses for the application so I'm trying to fix the CDs, but so far I'm running Disk Checker and it's taken all night, come up with 325 errors and is only 92% complete, when it was 91% complete after a couple of minutes, and I'm not even sure this will allow me to create an iso and rip a new CD.

Any ideas?

do a hunt for Visual studio update disk isos?

Alternatively let me know exactly which version you need and I may be able to make an iso of one of our cds available via my ftp

M

That's surprising, MS usually replaces anything that's legit. Must be different in yankland.

You could dip your hand in the petty cash tin and get something like this
http://www.cdfixit.com/cd_repair_kit.htm
"Our Fix-It solution actually repairs the disc surface"

Have you tried any of the scratched disk repair stuff may make it so you can crate a new copy ? Usually its a polish of some sort to sort out the scratches

I've tried a few things to fix the CDs to get them working long enough to reburn them but no joy so I reckon they're too far gone, no idea how the guy managed to bugger them so badly.

I've searched all my usual places for the Iso but can only find the full version rather than the upgrade which is a bit of a pisser. I reckon I'm going to just take the full version in and say to use that instead with a dodgy key. IMO if you own the right licenses then it shouldn't matter how you install the application anyways.

I was gonna say the ame as Adri/Geezer above. Are they scratch damaged or some other sort of knackered?

Well there's scratches on them but I wouldn't think they're bad enough to stop the CDs from working, the old brasso trick never worked on them either so I suspect some other form of knackeredom