How Do I Recover Data from CD with Stellar Phoenix?

With time as CDs became available at cheaper rates, its demand increased substantially in the market. CDs used for various purposes in different fields with primary motto being storage of data of the various forms like videos, tons of photos, etc. Being delicate, they are susceptible to damage and data loss problem, which in return affects the performance.

Reasons Why CDs Data Become Unavailable

Here are Some Reasons and Situations Where User Lose His CD Data

Dust and External Environment: Many users tend to leave their CDs open after use. This is a very common scene in busy offices as well as at home. When CD has kept open for long, dust can accumulate on it. In fact, dust can actually collect on CDs in minutes, which risks its functionality and data loss. That is why, it is important to store CDs properly. There are various types of folders with soft covers are available in the market, which could be used for this purpose.

The plastic material used to make CDs is easily get affected by moisture. Hence, a cooler and less    humid environment is preferable for the storage of CDs.

Mishandling: While using a CD , you must be very careful with the way you handle it. Ideally, it should not insert in anything except the CD player or CD cover. Mishandling, carelessly keeping it on any space could cause scratches and result into scratches, which leads to data loss issue. Since the rear side of the CD is very polished, it is prone to scratches, even with the slightest contact. However, it is not just the rear side; scratches on either side of the CD can damage it. In fact, scratches on the label side could do more damage than the ones on the laser-reading side. There are software, which make are capable of making corrections while reading the CD but it is important to choose the right software for that.

Breaking: CDs are made of plastic; they are very thin and brittle. A CD can be damaged and result into loss of data if it is broken or there are substantial cracks in it.

Overuse: Good quality CDs won’t wear out even if you use it for a long time. Although the same cannot be said about low quality ones. The foil layer on them can wear out over time if the quality is poor.

As you can see from the points above, CDs are prone to lose of data. The data can be affected partially or completely depending upon the damage done. They are two way to tackle this problem - either by following the manual steps given below or through a third party software.

Manual Steps to Recover Data from CDs

Cleaning:  If the CD has some small scratches on it and you are facing issues while playing it, you can try cleaning the backside. Keep the CD in proper light and examine the damaged area. If the scratches are minor, you can recover data by simply cleaning it, which can be done by using a very soft cloth with water or electronic cleanser. If there are stains of some greasy substance, you can clean it with small amount of detergent or soap. You can also clean the CD with toothpaste or brass. Always make sure there are no fingerprints or marks left on the surface after cleaning.

Burning software: Few burning software, can continue reading the CD even after getting an error. This feature can definitely help in retrieving back your data, if the damage is only partial. Click Here to know more.

Using third party software

There are many tools available in market, which can help in data recovery from CDs. The most reliable tool for CD data recovery is Stellar Phoenix CD Data Recovery. It helps in recovering any form of inaccessible data from the CDs or even Blu-ray discs.

This software helps in data recovery of CDs burnt in Windows platform.  It also helps in recovering files, which were deleted accidentally. Sometimes, CD is not completely or properly burnt, Stellar Phoenix CD DVD Data Recovery can help recovering data in such cases too.

How to Recover Data from Virus Affected Hard Drives?

With increased use of Internet and advancement in technology, there has been a growing threat of virus software programs that disrupt the normal functioning of the system. The major threat from these virus programs to the data or information stored in the system. These viruses may affect user’s data or annoy them to steal and misuse their data or information from the storage device for wrong intentions. Sometimes it happens when bad bugs make the storage device in completely inaccessible and which may directly lead data loss. To secure your electronic devices from such viruses,’ it is always recommended having professional anti-virus software. However, if the bugs already affect the system, then a data recovery method is the best option to get your lost data back. Before starting the recovery process to get back the lost data from an bug affected Windows hard drives let’s know the main reasons for virus attack on electronic devices:

Not Using Anti-Virus: - Not using anti-virus software to protect the system online and offline becomes a serious mistake in the case of a virus attack. The user should always use trustworthy anti-virus Software. It is always suggested to go for the paid antivirus software rather than a free one. 

Aware While Accessing Spam Mails: - Opening spam emails and attachments are most common mistakes a computer usually makes which leads to malicious software being released into the system. It is strictly advised to take precautions while accessing spam mails or download such attachments at all. Turn on the scanning feature in the anti-virus software that scans any program before it runs on the system.

Virus Attack from Unsecured Websites: - Surfing unsecured website that exploits the vulnerabilities of the browser to download automatically and install an unwanted program. It may decoy the website surfer to install such software on a pretext of being a useful application. These malicious programs then cause havoc on the system and may steal the data as well before destroying it. However, most modern browsers warn users before loading such a website.

Lost data recovery using CHKDSK or TESTDSK utilities

CHKDSK utility is provided as a built-in feature of the Windows operating system. It can be used to check for bad sectors on the disk, repair the disk and recover lost data, which was not overwritten. 

How to use?

• Open the command prompt on the system.
• Enter chkdsk [/drive] [/r]

Here, the drive is the disk on which data recovery needs to be done, and r instructs the system to check for the bad sectors and recover any readable information available from them.

TESTDSK offers a graphical user interface to select quickly the corrupt drive and attempt data recovery. It provides an undelete option to recover the deleted or lost data from a different file system such as NTFS, FAT formatted drives. 

How to use?

• Downloading the Test Disk tool, install it.
• Open the software as an administrator.
• Select Advanced option.
• Select the drive that needs data recovery and choose Undelete. This starts the recovery process and lists all the available files that can be recovered.
• Select the files and press “c” to copy. Recover the data in another partition or external media if possible.
• Once recovery is complete, quit the application.

Note: Use of above utilities requires basic technical knowledge about the command line tools.

Try Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery

Use of command line utilities may not recover the data completely and requires a good understanding of working with command line tools. In addition, if a wrong command is executed or a right command is executed wrongly, it may cause unexpected damage to the system. If you don’t want to take any risks or you are not so technical to execute these commands then I will recommend you to use Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery – Home. It is very handy tool. Anyone can use it without any technical expertise.   

How to Fix Missing or Invalid Hard Disk Drive Error?

User can divide a physical drive into a number of partitions to store data in structured manner. Dividing the disk into specific size drive helps to avoid confusion and keeps the data organized. Disk drives are of three types- primary, extended and logical. It is not possible to have more than four primary drives. At one point, only one primary drive is active. Primary and extended drives cannot intersect each other. Extended drives are fourth, which subdivided into logical drives.

A partition table indicates how many drives a hard disk has; it holds all the information about the divided drives like their sizes, location, etc. It is 64 bytes long. Each partition table is limited to a maximum of four primary partitions. However, sometimes it happens when this partition table gets affected, and user faces an error message like invalid or missing drive.

Reasons for a missing or invalid Drive:

Virus Attack

This is one of the most common reason for hard drive data loss. There are some viruses, which damaged the partition table of hard disk drive. Virus issues can be avoided by keeping your anti-virus software updated.

Incorrect Shutdown

Abrupt shutdowns, due to power outages, could lead to loss of logical drives or damage to them.

Human Error

Accidental logical drive loss may happen if the user does not have accurate computer knowledge.

Hardware/Software troubles

A defective software installed on your system may leads to drive data loss.

Hardware issues like bad RAM or problems with the hard drive could cause drive errors.

How to Fix this?

You can fix error manually by using the following method:

• Remove all connected external devices.
• Restart your computer, and wait for the BIOS screen to be displayed
• Click on the F8 key, which will take you to the Advanced Boot Options.
• In the advanced options, choose ‘Repair your computer’. You will get Systems Recovery options.
• Click on command prompt and type bootrec/fixmbr
• Wait for process to complete
• If it does not work, you can try to type bootrec/fixboot in the command prompt

If the above steps do not work, then there is a major problem with the disk.

In this situation, you can try any software for recovery. Use a trusted software like Stellar Phoenix Free Data recovery, as a defective software could worsen the problem.

Short Description about Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery – Free Edition

You can retrieve your valuable data like images, files or documents using the Stellar Phoenix Free Data Recovery software. This software is easy to use and available at free of cost, it is a must have product if you are suffering from any kind data loss issue. 

This software has a user-friendly interface and is simple to use. Connect the hard drive to your computer. Install and run Stellar Phoenix Free Data Recovery. It will automatically detect the drive, just select the drive and start the scanning process. After the scan is completed, the recoverable files will be shown in software interface. Select the files that you want to recover and click on the ‘Save’ button to save the files at your desired location.

Note: Stellar Phoenix can help recover upto 1 GB data.