Data recovery

[simpo two]

I had a folder on a CD-RW (I know, I know) with about 10 Word files in it. I opened one file, made some changes then went to save it. When I went to eject the disc, I recall seeing a message saying something like 'process not finished, do you want to continue?'. (This was unusal as normally I get a window with a little animation saying 'completing writing process' or similar).

Anyway, I chose 'yes' and the disc came out. The next time I looked at the disc, there was only *one* file in that folder. Other stuff on the disc was OK. I opened the one surviving file to check it and when I closed it, the other ones suddenly appeared. So I opened one - it appeared OK - but on closing it they all disappeared and are still AWOL.

Have I lost them for good now or is their some recovery technique? I have XP, Nero and the free version of Roxio which came with the writer. The disc was originally formatted using Roxio for drag and drop operation.

All ideas welcomed.

[pbrettle]

Mmm, you are into the realms of getting some outside assistance. You can get some bit by bit scanning tools, but not sure if they work on CD's - most only do disks and hard disks.... your best bet is to deal with a data recovery company (if the data is valuable).

Try www.vogon.co.uk/ - they are very good.

[dontlift]

Vogon are the best in this field but be warned their services do not come cheap - we have used them many times to recover data from totally failed hard disks etc

[simpo two]

Thanks folks. The data is not worth paying to get back, it's just very inconvenient. I'd hoped there might be something within XP or some freeware that might help.

[simpo two]

Update: I recently thought 'bollox to it' and tried to delete the troublesome folder. It wouldn't let me do it. So I had another look in it and behold! There was one of the missing files. I copied it to a safe place and tried again. Another of the missing files turned up! By repeating the process several times I eventually got them all back except one, which was really corrupt (hence it will an EC Commissioner soon I expect!).

Bizarre.

[pbrettle]

Ah Microsoft is great isnt it? Glad you got it sorted though.