Broken CD - data recovery - any chance?

[supergeeky]

Hi all,

I've got a friend whose wife is ready to kill. The CD of wedding photo's is currently in three pieces and not backed up. Any leads where he can get at least some of the data recovered? At this point in time he's almost "money no object"...

...any leads would be appreciated,
Many thanks,

 

[Arris]

I've never looked into this before. I'd imagine there isn't much that can be done. CDs and DVDs have a short life in data storage terms and really should not be relied on as a permanent storage media for important data. There seem to be a few companies out there that offer data recovery from damaged CDs, but this is usually from scratched rather than broken into pieces disks.

 

[supergeeky]

yeah, so far asked Vogon (now ontrack) datarecover.ie and datarecoveryusa.com so far all responses are in the negatory... I'm wondering now if it is possible at all? can the authorities put it together if it meant getting a conviction?

 

[SNGX1275]

I would think it is possible to get at least some of the data back, in theory. Although, it may be something that commercial recovery places can't do but governments can (like using an SEM to read the 'pits' in the burned layer and then mapping them - probably very manual labor intensive and therefore expensive).

 

[supergeeky]

could an SEM get through the surface to the dye layer?

 

[fimbles]

Were they taken on a digital camera.

Possibly be easier to recover the data from that if possible.

 

[SNGX1275]

could an SEM get through the surface to the dye layer?

Thats a good question, I'm not an SEM expert, but I have taken a university course on them and have about 50 hours on a Hitachi S-570 LaB6 SEM and Hitachi 4700 FESEM. One of our labs we looked at a CD layer, but I believe it was peeled from the plastic, so if they did it to give us a lab project it could probably be done again. If it could not though, you might be able to crank up the accelerating voltage to something really high (maybe 25kV rather than 10 or 15kV that is more "standard").

 

[willz]

Tech support

Hi, I would recommend, if the pieces can fit together, to super glue the pieces back together on a surface with petroleum on the surface so it won't stick. Then wait 2-3 days and try to see if it will work then. If not I would go to a welder to weld it together to see if it will work.

 

[SNGX1275]

you aren't going to be welding a cd back together.

 

[raybay]

Costs would be enormous. Better to leave home now.

The smartests tech husbands use a blank disk with the same label, then blame somebody they don't like who stayed overnight in the guest room.