I'm trying to recover data from an audio cd. it is a recording of a live session, made on a professional cd recorder, on the fly.
apparently, instead of stopping it and fixating the disc, someone turned off the power. oops.
I know that wodim will fixate a disk as long as it was otherwise properly terminated (I've done it more than once), but this one it won't fixate. depending on the drive I try it in, I get different messages, but in either case, it remains unfixated.
so i've tried reading it with cdparanoia, but it can't do anything with it, or not that I've figured out how to do.
So, can anyone suggest ways to try to recover this audio data?
thanks!
Fred Smith fredex@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us wrote:
I'm trying to recover data from an audio cd. it is a recording of a live session, made on a professional cd recorder, on the fly.
Do you have any working CD from that drive? If yes, you could call:
cdrecord -minfo
to get the state and to find out whether it writes in TAO mode. (-minfo is a shortcut for -media-info).
apparently, instead of stopping it and fixating the disc, someone turned off the power. oops.
I know that wodim will fixate a disk as long as it was otherwise properly terminated (I've done it more than once), but this one it won't fixate. depending on the drive I try it in, I get different messages, but in either case, it remains unfixated.
wodim is a defective variant from an extremely outdated cdrecord (taken from a cdrecord from September 2004).
- Did you try the original software?
- Is it possible to use the original drive that was used for writing?
so i've tried reading it with cdparanoia, but it can't do anything with it, or not that I've figured out how to do.
cdparanoia is a patch on a cdda2wav version from 1997. There was never an update on the cdda2wav code and development stopped in 2001. Don't expect cdparanoia to be able to read such disks, as the _read_ properties in cdparanoia are generally bad compared to a recent cdda2wav.
Note that after the development for cdparanoia stopped around 2000/2001, Heiko Eißfeld and I took the "paranoia code" (the code in cdparanoia above the read layer that is responsible for retries and result rating) out of cdparanoia, made a portable library from it and added it to cdda2wav.
Your problem is that cdparanoia will never read a TOC-less disk and that the dead fork from a September 2004 cddda2wav called "icedax" is full of bugs.
The real cdda2wav has a compile option to set up a virtual TOC, but if you ever like to read a CD without a TOC, you not only need to tell cdda2wav the TOC by exiting the compiled in TOC, but you also need to kill any hostile software on your computer that tries to access CDs in an unapropriate way, such as "hald" or it's successors. Once such a program did try to access a problematic CD, you will never be able to access the CD unless you reload it - which will result in a new access attempt :-(
If the CD has a PMA (which I expect from writing in TAO mode), the disk should be readable by cdda2wav if you use a drive that understands the PMA.
Jörg
Fred Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
Jörg:
Sorry I'm so late replying, I missed your reply back when it was new...
I'm trying to recover data from an audio cd. it is a recording of a live session, made on a professional cd recorder, on the fly.
Do you have any working CD from that drive? If yes, you could call:
cdrecord -minfo
to get the state and to find out whether it writes in TAO mode. (-minfo is a shortcut for -media-info).
Such discs do exist, I just don't happen to have one handy at the moment. I'll see if I can acquire one.
apparently, instead of stopping it and fixating the disc, someone turned off the power. oops.
I know that wodim will fixate a disk as long as it was otherwise
properly
terminated (I've done it more than once), but this one it won't fixate. depending on the drive I try it in, I get different messages, but in either case, it remains unfixated.
wodim is a defective variant from an extremely outdated cdrecord (taken from a cdrecord from September 2004).
- Did you try the original software?
Not yet. I just built latest cdrtools but haven't done anything with them yet.
- Is it possible to use the original drive that was used for writing?
the original isn't a drive per se, it's a professional audio recorder, rack-mounted, that contains a CD drive of some sort.
I THINK what happened was the recorder was powered off while writing. Probably made a huge mess of the data, or at least left it in some bad unfinished state.
so i've tried reading it with cdparanoia, but it can't do anything with it, or not that I've figured out how to do.
cdparanoia is a patch on a cdda2wav version from 1997. There was never an update on the cdda2wav code and development stopped in 2001. Don't expect cdparanoia to be able to read such disks, as the _read_ properties in cdparanoia are generally bad compared to a recent cdda2wav.
Note that after the development for cdparanoia stopped around 2000/2001, Heiko Eißfeld and I took the "paranoia code" (the code in cdparanoia above the read layer that is responsible for retries and result rating) out of cdparanoia, made a portable library from it and added it to cdda2wav.
Your problem is that cdparanoia will never read a TOC-less disk and that the dead fork from a September 2004 cddda2wav called "icedax" is full of bugs.
The real cdda2wav has a compile option to set up a virtual TOC, but if you ever like to read a CD without a TOC, you not only need to tell cdda2wav the TOC by exiting the compiled in TOC, but you also need to kill any hostile software on your computer that tries to access CDs in an unapropriate way, such as "hald" or it's successors. Once such a program did try to access a problematic CD, you will never be able to access the CD unless you reload it - which will result in a new access attempt :-(
Ugh. I think I'll have to build a VM for this, since I don't want to break my existing system.
If the CD has a PMA (which I expect from writing in TAO mode), the disk should be readable by cdda2wav if you use a drive that understands the PMA.
so, if "cdrecord -minfo" tells me it was written as TAO, then there should be a PMA and I might then be able to read it with cdda2wav?
Thanks for the info!
Fred
Jörg
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On 05/01/2013 11:33 PM, fredex wrote:
Fred Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
Jörg:
[snip]
- Is it possible to use the original drive that was used for writing?
the original isn't a drive per se, it's a professional audio recorder, rack-mounted, that contains a CD drive of some sort.
I THINK what happened was the recorder was powered off while writing. Probably made a huge mess of the data, or at least left it in some bad unfinished state.
I have used such a recorder, and the one I used WAS capable of recovering a disk from a mess like what you describe. But...it takes a while. It has to read the entire disk (and it is designed to read at 1X), figure out what is on it, and then finalize it.
If you can get access to the original recorder, I would suggest you let it try to clean up its own mess. Even better would be to get hold of the manual (paper or online) and see what it suggests for finalizing a disk that has been removed from the recorder.
Ted Miller Elkhart, IN
On Thu, May 02, 2013 at 12:25:40AM -0400, Ted Miller wrote:
On 05/01/2013 11:33 PM, fredex wrote:
Fred Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
Jörg:
[snip]
- Is it possible to use the original drive that was used for writing?
the original isn't a drive per se, it's a professional audio recorder, rack-mounted, that contains a CD drive of some sort.
I THINK what happened was the recorder was powered off while writing. Probably made a huge mess of the data, or at least left it in some bad unfinished state.
I have used such a recorder, and the one I used WAS capable of recovering a disk from a mess like what you describe. But...it takes a while. It has to read the entire disk (and it is designed to read at 1X), figure out what is on it, and then finalize it.
If you can get access to the original recorder, I would suggest you let it try to clean up its own mess. Even better would be to get hold of the manual (paper or online) and see what it suggests for finalizing a disk that has been removed from the recorder.
Ordinarily, if you stop recording then remove the drive withouot finalizing the disc, you can simply re-insert the disc then press the finalize button and off it goes. but in this case it fails.
I can tell simply by looking at the reflection off the transparent side of the disc that it's been written on (slightly different shade where it's been written), so there definitely is information on it.
I'll see if I can scare up the manual, though,... I hadn't thought of that.
Fred