Jim A.
Slow, partial recovery of 'clean' disc, maybe plastic aging
On a 16-year-old backup dvd there was a mysterious problem because it looked clean but would not play. Trying to make a copy in MS Explorer the copy process would hang about 10% of the way in. So I tried this recovery software and it identified an area of 90 MB that was bad. It took 4 hours to copy this area. The copy would play in VLC but showed tearing images in the bad places. Desperate, I polished the problem disc where I suspected the bad data to be, using a very fine cutting abrasive. Then it worked without any problem! Maybe there was some age-related microscopic crazing? I suggest the software should be able to report the type of errors it sees, so the user can take appropriate action and save time.
Response from Recovery ToolboxJun 17, 2026
Our program achieved the best possible results at the software level. After that, a mechanical repair of the drive was required. Could you give the program the highest rating for providing the best possible—and free—method of fixing the drive?