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I have a CD that someone made for me that I'm trying to figure what is wrong with it. The CD played once on a CD player in a car and now wouldn't play or get recognized on a computer again. I've also tested it on a Windows and Mac computer.

When I insert the disk into my CD drive I don't hear it spin, and no notifications or anything showing the disk is mounted in GUI. I'm sure the restricted extras not being installed on my computer isn't the problem as I've already handled that a long time ago and am currently able to read DVDs and stuff like that.

I'd much rather take the songs off the CD and reburn a CD myself than return the disk to the maker as that would probably take a long time and they would probably just do it the same way again.

Are there any tools that you guys use to figure out what possible issues there are on a CD?

MadMike
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Paul Ronquillo
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  • I'm using ddrescue to do my CD/DVD rescuing stuff. sudo apt-get install gddrescue to install on Ubuntu. I use it like on this page: http://sumofungus.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/making-backup-copies-of-damaged-dvds-using-ddrescue/ But, I'm a little woried that you don't hear the CD spinning even after insertion. – MadMike Oct 21 '14 at 06:43
  • Great! Thanks for the application recommendation. Yea, none of the computers I have will spin the CD. Maybe it starts and fails reading so it stops trying quickly? That's all I can think of since the disk does in fact work. I just ripped some different CDs today. – Paul Ronquillo Oct 22 '14 at 06:11

2 Answers2

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Rescue the CD with ddrescue

ddrescue isn't installed by default. So you will need to do that first.

You need to enable the Ubuntu Universe repository first.

Then open a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+t. Install it with the command: 

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gddrescue

We will need to find the logical path of your CD-drive. If you have only one it will be /dev/sr0. If you have more than one enter the following command to find the right one:

sudo lshw -C disk

This will show you a list of all available drives. Look for the CD drive description that matches your drive and use the logical name found there instead of /dev/sr0.

As a first run, we tell ddrescue to copy all content from the CD that do not yield any errors.

sudo ddrescue -b 2048 -n -v /dev/sr0 cd.iso cd.log

This creates two files cd.iso will contain all rescued data. The parts with errors will be filled with zeros. Those missing places are logged in cd.log.

sudo ddrescue -b 2048 -d -r 3 -R -v /dev/sr0 cd.iso cd.log

This command will try to fill the missing gaps and will take some time to complete.

Using a second drive/computer to continue rescuing

A cool feature of ddrescue is that you can try to continue rescuing some more data on a different drive on a different computer. Some drives can read what other couldn't. Just bring both the iso- and the log-file to the other computer, check what path the drive on that computer has and change the command accordingly and run it again.

Source of this guide: http://sumofungus.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/making-backup-copies-of-damaged-dvds-using-ddrescue/

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MadMike
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  • Is it possible to cancel the process and continue it with sudo ddrescue -b 2048 -n -v /dev/sr0 cd.iso cd.log? – Dominic Jul 24 '19 at 12:39
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    @DominicBartl Yes, you can cancel and continue. The log makes sure it will only try to read the stuff it is missing. – MadMike Jul 31 '19 at 11:36
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CD's burned on cheap media or at high-speeds can eventually degrade and from then on wont work properly... Try inserting the cd into different makes of cd/dvd drives as some have better heads and firmware for reading dodgy discs... Failing that you could try this link in recovering the cd:

http://hyperlogos.org/page/Recovering-damaged-CDs-or-DVDs-Linux

TenPlus1
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