Does anyone know of a clever way to recover most or all of the data lost in an audio file burned to cd? I have a 40 min. track, and somewhere in the first 2 min, there’s a flaw. Can’t copy to my hd, can’t rescue the info. I’m about to go through the trouble of re-recording what’s left if nobody has a better suggestion.
Running this on a mac. Thanks.
There is a powerfull tool for copying audio data from a CD. You might want to try this, although it is a M$ Windows program. Nevertheless, it might be worth it trying on a friends PC. This software has many parameters you can set, that you did not even know existed. Also trying a different drive helps sometimes as wel. Let me know if you need help with it.
EDIT: I totally forgot the link, the tool is called Exact Audio Copy, and can be downloaded here: exactaudiocopy.de/
works under linux and is freeware 
eac is the best and safer ripper ever!
i wonder if isobuster might also help recover data from that cd. but again it’s on windows not mac :s
works under linux and is freeware eac is the best and safer ripper ever!
I wonder if isobuster might also help recover data from that cd. but again it’s on windows not mac :s[/quote]
Oh, eac works under linux as well? Do you mean using wine or is it running natively. I will have to check their download section.
Thanks for the suggestion, ratlung. I booted up the ThinkPad to try eac, and was having some trouble, but then, surprise-surprise, the ThinkPad’s drive was able to read the file. I copied it over, then used a USB drive to move it back onto the Mac. 
of course, with a glass of ‘wine’:
appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?versionId=3699
the config is a bit tricky but if you got wine to run normally, you’ve already done the hardest part! eac is so much better than grip!
wine is getting really amazing 
cool apps like dvdshrink run just like in m$ window$!
[quote=“5566”]
of course, with a glass of ‘wine’:
appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?versionId=3699
the config is a bit tricky but if you got wine to run normally, you’ve already done the hardest part! eac is so much better than grip!
wine is getting really amazing cool apps like dvdshrink run just like in m$ window$![/quote]
I will have to give wine another try as soon as my desktop is back. There are other Windows apps that I would like to use, and don’t want to reboot each time.
Even though it appears you’ve found a solution I thought I’d mention that LifeHacker listed a couple of ways to smooth the surface of a scratched up CD with Brasso or Toothpaste. I haven’t tried it, but I’d say it’s worth trying in future.
Even though it appears you’ve found a solution I thought I’d mention that LifeHacker listed a couple of ways to smooth the surface of a scratched up CD with Brasso or Toothpaste. I haven’t tried it, but I’d say it’s worth trying in future.
lifehacker.com/software/repair/index.php[/quote]
Interesting webside, have you ever tried any of those tricks?
I was going to suggest you try another drive. Quite regularly I have had to mix up the drives to get some ROMs to read properly. Having 2 drives in one machine is handy for this purpose. Infact, one time a fresh XP install disk had an erratic error similar to you describe and I ended up copying it to a portable HDD from another machine to get it to be reliable.
DO NOT use toothpaste to polish your CDs. Many toothpastes have a fine grit in them that is very abrasive to the CD’s plastic. (This is by the way the non-chemical way toothpaste whitens your teeth: grinding off some of the outer enamel.)
I actually thought that was the idea. The fine grit sands down the surface so it has a smooth (but not shiny) finish again, at least enough for the laser to read it. I haven’t tried that method and wouldn’t advise it unless you’ve tried a few other methods first; trying other CDROM’s, cleaning the laser and using a variety of recovery software.
I do believe that is the whole point, to find a fine grit as an abrasive, so scratches can be polished out.
When I was a younger Aircraft Mechanic, I use to polish out scratches in the acrylic canopies on the fighters. We had a kit for doing it that started with various grades of SANDPAPER and towards the end of the job we used an abrazive creme, similar to Jif or Cif or whatever it is. We’d also use Brasso metal polish.
Works well.
The trick is removing the scratch without distorting the surface, so if you happen to put a slight concave in the surface, it will divert the laser slightly.
That was also one of the things we had to watch out for on the fighter canopies, and the reason it took so long to blend out a scratch - no localised rubbing.
There are a number of CD/DVD resurfacing machines out there. I saw one at Guang Hua market recently, I can’t remember the cost, but i think it was 300-400 or something.
Have you tried it? I did this a few years back on some cheap throwaway CDs and a few brands of toothpaste and it completely destroyed the surfaces of the CDs turning the plastic a nice scuffed up surface. But if you want to screw up your own CDs, please be my guest.
I would use any version of CD polishing with something like toothpaste or those grinding machines at the computer market as a last resort. If your CD does not work at all anymore in any drive you have tried, you basically have nothing to loose. Back as a teenager, we manged to revive a skipping Phil Collins CD by using some car polish. But don’t sue me if it ruins your CDs. Not sure what we did correctly. But I’d be careful. Oh, and always move from the inside to the outside when trying this. scratches parellel to the tracks are worse than perpendicular once.