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Thread: Can Data be retrived from Broken CDs

  1. #1
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    Can Data be retrived from Broken CDs

    Hi,
    Computer Forensics sounds interesting, after reading the previous thread i am curious to know can data be retrived from broken CDs.............
    c u
    Aladdin
    Aladdin

  2. #2
    AO Decepticon CXGJarrod's Avatar
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    What thread are you referring to?
    N00b> STFU i r teh 1337 (english: You must be mistaken, good sir or madam. I believe myself to be quite a good player. On an unrelated matter, I also apparently enjoy math.)

  3. #3
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    Well the data doesnt erase itself when a CD breaks, like if you break a small triangle foff of a side of a CD, the first 14 out of 17 songs may still play normal. But i dont know how you're gonna glue together a broken CD that it read all the data normaly since it would skip some part.

  4. #4
    Senior Member therenegade's Avatar
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    My guess is it wouldnt work if the cd were broken into pieces
    Here's a bit of a link I was looking at though:
    If you have problems with reading the CD, it's mirror surface could be contaminated by particles, fingerprints, various stains or, unfortunately, scratched.

    To clean your CD use a soft lint-free cloth and apply light strokes in the radial direction only! The data on CDs are stored and read in a circumferential direction and the drive's optic is less sensitive to radial scratches you may generate yourself!

    Data on CD disks is protected by a layer of lacquer on one side (mirror side) and by another layer of polycarbonate (PC) plastic on the other side (label side). The data are stored in the form of shallow pits in the PC matrix covered with a thin reflective layer of aluminum. If you scratch the disk and this scratch is deep enough to damage (remove) the pits, your data is lost locally. Fortunately, CDs are robust and not all scratches cause irreversible damage. If you have scratches on the mirror side of a CD and you really want to try recovering the data yourself (instead of looking for professional help), then, there are a couple of things you may try.

    Complete article:http://www.usbyte.com/index_recovery.htm#CD

  5. #5
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    The theoretical answer to your question is "yes"

    To completely destroy the data you would have to burn the CD , dissolve it or pulverise (reduce to powder) it.

    If you just chop it into bits, they can be reassembled and read.

    Hope that helps

  6. #6
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    And a little tip that i picked up along the way.
    Well if you have a Cd and it's fairly scratched just apply a small amount of toothpaste on to your finger and then rub it onto the scratch.
    Then before it dries up to much grab a tissue or some sort of soft like material and rub of the ToothPaste, it will patch up the scratch and you'll find that your Cd's that would once skip or not work properly should start working like knew.

    1+1=2
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  7. #7
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    Sort of related,

    A friend of mine once gave me his copy of a utilties progam. This cd was like nothing i had ever seen befor, there were holes you could look through.

    I took one look at it and said there is no way that will install........ It did though.

    Draw your own conclusions from that.
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  8. #8
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    aladdinhere,

    The Law Enforcement Community, FBI, etc., have been piecing together tapes, floppies, HDDs, and most likely CDs as well, for a long time. For surface areas on CDs where data might be missing, they have been real successful at making assumptions on what the data was based on the remaining portions. Sorta like math.

    Just food for thought.

    cheers
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  9. #9
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    MemorY,

    But i dont know how you're gonna glue together a broken CD that it read all the data normaly since it would skip some part.
    Yes, it wouldn't play/read "normally" but this is a forensics question so I am assuming that the disk has been reassembled in a forensics lab and that the contents are being scanned for, rather than read. Electron tunnelling microscopy?

    Now, if you think about it, just chopping the disk will cause some damage where the cuts were made, but what percentage of the total data area will that damage represent? Given the right kind of software, it is highly probable that the data could be recovered, and the missing bits "reconstructed".

    I guess it is a bit like one of those jigsaw puzzles................if it is around 60% complete with a random distribution you will almost certainly be able to work out what the picture is of?

    1+1=2

    Yes, that sounds pretty good, I remember a few years back there was this review in one of our PC mags of a product that recovered damaged CDs. It had a very fine carborundum grinding disk in it. The guy who tested it got a music CD and scratched up so it wouldn't play, put it in this machine, and the thing played perfectly! I think that the running costs were about $2.5 per CD.

    After all, toothpaste is a very mild (fine) abrasive?

    Jinxy, I can see no real problem with that...........there was nothing in the place where the holes were?...............a bit like a hard drive with damaged sectors, the system just skips them and goes to the next good one?

    Cheers

    EDIT: Damn! Relyt you beat me by two minutes

  10. #10
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    Originally posted here by 1+1=2
    And a little tip that i picked up along the way.
    Well if you have a Cd and it's fairly scratched just apply a small amount of toothpaste on to your finger and then rub it onto the scratch.
    Then before it dries up to much grab a tissue or some sort of soft like material and rub of the ToothPaste, it will patch up the scratch and you'll find that your Cd's that would once skip or not work properly should start working like knew.

    1+1=2
    I have also found petroleum jelly to work in the same fashion. Works every time on music cds.
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