the disc worked before but i hadn't watched it in a while...the first time i tried to run it windows had detected it and the video was skipping...so i tried to clean the disc and run it again...the disc has practically no scratches on it....sometimes windows detects the cd but when i try to copy it the source directory cannot be opened or something like that...the only software that recognises my cd is imgburn but i get a plethora of bad sectors when i try to make an iso from the disc..is there any way i can save my disc?

Have you tried opening with the software that you originally recorded it?. Assuming it is your recording.

Try ISO Buster.....from HERE.

the life cycle of cd-r/rw is very very less than they told the world it would be. especially for cheap blanks. I assume the cd is not of use any longer. what you could try is to use as many different drives as you can find, maybe you have an older computer with an older cd reader? you could also go to a copy shop and let them make a direct copy. they have cd copier boxes which are known to even copy the scratches :-)