Suggested Blu-ray and/or DVD Drive(s) For Reading Failing DVD's?

[brispuss]

I have some failing DVD's (due to deteriorating media, and not due to scratch or scuff marks etc.) which I am wanting to back up to HDD and to other DVD's.

Looking for currently available drives that are known to be good at reading/recovering data from failing DVD's.

Just to complicate matters, it is understood that sometimes even same model drives may varying in reading performance due to tolerances in components used and in assembly of the drives(!?)

So, which make and model of drives are recommended for reading failing DVD's please?

 

[brispuss]

Using a professional service to recover data is not really an option due to very limited finances. And discarding the discs is also not an option at this time.

So I'm still looking for recommended drive(s) to read data from failing discs so as to retrieve as much data as possible (in conjunction with certain software).

 

[JalleR]

Have you tried to force your drives speed down to 1x, I have had success with that a couple of times.

 

[Komshija]

Yes, slower reading speed might help. Try to copy CD/DVD to HDD. Sometimes, when optical drive failed to read certain DVD's, I cleaned them by spitting on their reading side and than cleaning with microfibre cloth. It was a success in most situations.

 

[brispuss]

DVD readers were slowed down, but data is still difficult to get off the DVD's.

The DVD's I'm currently working on have very little or no scratch marks or scuff marks etc, so cleaning or polishing them will have little or no effect. The problem seems to be more due to failing media.

So it's back to choosing drive(s) that are good at reading failing data.

 

[Shou Miko]

If u take a stand-alone dvd-player for ur television doesn't read the whole disk as once as a optical drive in ur pc does, that might be the reason why a stand-alone player read ur disc better than ur optical drives.

I have found this out with dvd's i borrowed at the library yrs ago when I borrowed movies there, bcs my stand-alone dvd player, played all movies but my optical drive didn't always, if they did sometimes there were errors, trying different optical drives (manufacture and models from Asus, LG, Pioneer, Samsung and so on)

 

[brispuss]

The standalone DVD player also has problems playing back the failing DVD.

What I would like to do is to backup the failing DVD using a good DVD reader before it is too late (if not already).

 

[slozomby]

have you tried resurfacing the dvds?

 

[brispuss]

As mentioned in post #5, the problem appears to be with the media within the disc itself; it is not a problem due to surface defects such as scratches, scuff marks etc. So resurfacing and/or polishing etc will not help.

 

[mongobird]

What is the process the DVDs were created with? If you know. Some printing processes, especially early in the game, lost the metallic deposition layer, and it would fade out.

I don't recall (for DVDs) off the top of my head, but for audio, reading CDs with the paranoia library will help. Essentially the substitute library does repeated reads voting on the result.

Using printed CDs and also using CD-RW media which is old, or has had some thermal damage, I have been able to read and copy CD media which was otherwise unreadable with normal read library calls.

The process is slow, and can take a day or two for a CD. I have done it with a variety of drives, mostly common lower cost drives. Some very high cost/performance drives. No notable observation favoring the higher end drives. The real special sauce is in the repeated voting of poor reads, and some data mechanics with CRC, and checksums.

You just need the DVD equivalent of cd-paranoia. (If it exists.)

 

[mongobird]

This may be helpful:

http://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...d-dvd-video-a-cdparanoia-for-dvds/77846#77846

Where the following is asked, and answered to a degree:

However some of my DVDs have a few scratches and my DVD drive has some trouble reading a few sectors. So, is there a tool similar to cdparanoia, but for DVDs?

 

[Jetster]

Plextor makes the best drive

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/cds-truth-cddvd-longevity-mold-rot/