Trying to Read an old CD RW

Hi Dan,

My name is Igor, I have 12 Microsoft MVP awards. It's a pleasure for me to help others and I'll do all my best to help you. I'm sorry you have a problems.

Unfortunately RW disks may lose information over time. Seems the system can read disk information no more.

You may try to use some other CD/DVD drives, may be they will be able to read the disk.

And you may try third party tools in attempt to recovery data: Recovery Toolbox for CD, OpenCopy, ISO Booster, BadCopyPro (in file recovering mode) and so on.

Windows does not see the file system at all. It shows 0 bytes used. I am pretty sure there is stuff there, but the driver can't see it.

Thanks again for the suggestion.

First of all, I am using a new, highly-recommended external Dell CD Disk Player (does DVD and Bluray too). It plays other CDs just fine, so a mechanical issue with it is not a prime suspect.

I have no problem reading CD-R disks from the same batch. It's the CD-RWs that are giving me the issue.

@Igor - while it is possible that the disks may lose information over time, I am moving this down on the suspect list. The CDs have been stored in a benign climate (no extreme temperatures and no humidity and zero exposure to light even). Also, ALL the CDs (about a dozen of them have the same behavior). I don't think I've tried to read them since I put them away years ago.

@Igor - I'll try the freezer trick. I am interested, what is the logic behind this possibly working?

@Horace - the disks are marked with cryptic names like "Backup B2 JGs" - I'm sure there are (were) JPEGs on them at one point.

I do not see a directory listing when I put them in. It sees them as a blank CD. The options that come up immediately ask about how I want to burn the disk and then it goes on to format them. I sacrificed one disk to this process.

I suspect that the software used to burn the CD-RWs was specific to the computer or drive that I was using at the time. CD-Rs promised compatibility and they delivered. CD_RW is some other format. There may exist software that can do the translation. However, beyond having a strong curiosity as to what may exist on these disks, I have no compelling reason to recover them.

I was hoping for a "low-hanging" fruit solution, but since there does not seem to be one, I will abandon the project.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Is the disk marked that images are on it? Below is an image from mine when I insert an older CD and what shows when it opens.

What do you have set in auto-play. See image below.

This is an older CD with jpgs on it. Look at the date.

P.S. Sometimes may be helpful to cool disk in freezer and then try to read.