Update: IsoPuzzle 1.6 - Recovery program for scratched damaged DVD Data-CD

[marsoupilami]

You need a working ASPI layer on Your system!
This program has been tested with the newest version of WNASPI32.DLL of NERO AG (Version 2.0.1.74).
Please visit the homepage of NERO AG to get the DLL and read the terms of use!
http://www.nero.com/nero6/eng/WNASPI32.DLL.html

NEW VERSION AVAILABLE HERE
http://www.geocities.com/marsoupilamis/

Please put the WNASPI32.dll together to Your IsoPuzzle.exe folder - do not copy it to Your system folders. Please note, that the behaviour of this program may depend on this dll.

@ admins:
========
If You like to host this program here please feel free to do it!

Short Description:
=============
The goal of this program is to recover as much as possible data of damaged, bad burned or scratched CDs or DVDs.
This version is experimental and supports only data CDs and DVDs with sectorsize of 2048 byte - Audio CD, VCD and SVCD are not supported.

How it works:
==========
All readable data is stored in an "ISO" image file which can be read by various software such as "Daemon Tools", "WinRar" (needs iso-plugin) and most burner software like "Nero" etc.
Please note, that image files greater 4GB need to reside on a NTFS disk!

Every succsessfully read sector is stored in the image file (*.ISO) and will be marked "good" in the corresponding "flag" file (*.FLG).
If a read error is encountered a dummy sector will be written which will remain marked "bad". In this case a random number of sectors are skipped for faster progress.
Reaching the end of the disk a retry loop will be entered until all sectors have been read or a selectable "Give Up Time" has been reached.

After selecting the "Source" drive and the "Destination" folder the copy process can be started by pressing "Start".
The filenames are taken automatically from the DVDs volume label if available.

The copy process can be interrupted at any time by pressing the "Pause" button and can be continued by pressing "Start" again.
This way You can try to complete Your image file even on different machines with different CD drives - often one drive can read some sectors which are unreadable for an other one.

For using different drives You can share the image file *.ISO (together with the flag file *.FLG) on a network drive or put it on a portable disk (USB).

Import function:
============
To avoid dealing with very large files You can use the "Import" function:
Assuming that You started on machine "A" and no more data comes from Your DVD.
.) Copy ONLY (!) the *.FLG file (e.g. via USB stick) to machine "B".
.) On "B" select "Destination" folder, where the *.FLG is located.
.) "Start" will create an "import file" *.IMP in the same folder. All readable sectors are now stored here.
.) After completion on "B" transfer the *.IMP to a location where it is accessible from machine "A".
.) On "A" it can be merged into the existing *.ISO image with "Import File"

Force Disksize - WARNING - Use with care!
=========================================
.) Some DVD drives report slightly different size of the same DVD/CD.
For ripping to an existing *.Iso/*Flg pair (or *.Imp/*.Flg) You can set
the disk size to "Flagfile reported".
(You can try "Estimated" to get out, which drive is wrong ...)
.) In some cases "empty disk" is reported although the disk is readable.
Setting the size to "Estimated" would be the choice here.
This function may be slow and unreliable.

Be careful and be sure You know what You are doing when using this function!!!
By changing the (drive reported) disk size You might accidentially destroy
an existing image file - make sure the given filenames are correct!

Cylce Tray
==========
It your responsibility NOT to change the disk while the tray is open!

History:
========
1.4 Added options: Cycle tray on multiple errors, Select iso-filename,
Force disksize (solves "different sectornumber" and "empty disk")
1.3 Progressbar & other cosmetics
1.2 Crash on missing host-adapter-0 fixed
1.1 A few bugs corrected
1.0 First release

[kumi]

Interesting! I've been recently hunting for something like this.

If I remember correctly, DVD-Video discs use 2048-byte sectors, so your tool should work on these, right? I have a valuable home movie burned on a degraded DVD+R (read errors occur near the starting sectors.) I'm hoping that if the outer sectors are readable, your tool will help me recover some of the footage.

Thanks marsoupilami

[marsoupilami]

Yes! VideoDVD use 2048-byte sectors - that's right!

Until now I'm not sure what's the best way if You are not able to complete without read errors (missing sectors).
In case of a Video-DVD I guess You can try "mock stripping" with IfoEdit.

[Mug Funky]

i don't suppose this handles CSS'd discs then? (2054 byte sectors IIRC). there wouldn't be much point ripping these without decryption anyway

real good work - the number of bad discs i've had to try on all different drives is quite large. this program should help a lot

[kumi]

I couldn't get IsoPuzzle to read out any sectors of my disc, I let it run for about 30 minutes and I got 100% read failure rate. Both DVDDecrypter (in ASPI or SPTI mode) and IsoBuster can read all but about 120 sectors.

[marsoupilami]

@Mug Funky
If You will get off the image You can try mounting it with DaemonTools as a virtual disk and there running DVDDecrypter... but I didn't test this.
@kumi
Maybe You have a RPC protected disk?
I've heard in such case the drive could be unlocked by opening the disk with a software player or DVDDecrypter

[kumi]

Originally Posted by marsoupilami

Maybe You have a RPC protected disk?

Not RPC. I replaced my wnaspi32.dll (I think it came with windows XP?), and IsoPuzzle started working.

Non-working wnaspi32.dll (100% fail-rate)
Description: ASPI for Win32 DLL
Company: Adaptec
Version: 4.71.0002.0000

Working wnaspi32.dll:
Description: Win32 Nero Aspi Library
Company: Ahead Software AG
Version: 2.00.0001.0074

Edit: it's strange, the Adaptec wnaspi32.dll is the same one DVDDecrypter is using, and it works in that program.

[LakersFan]

So basically it's like this: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=106778 except in English?

I love that program, it's saved me a few times.

[marsoupilami]

@kumi
It is NOT necessary to change anything in Your system:
Simply keep the working dll together with the exe in the same folder!
I didn't test many versions of different dlls... If You like mail me the non-working one - I will try to fix this in a next version!

@LakersFan
I had the idea to write such a program a long while ago.
When a friend told me about that german program I presented it here.
This one - I hope - is more user friendly because of it's GUI, it's 'GiveUp' and it's 'shutdown' function and it takes the filenames from the disk automatically (which could be a useful feature late at night)
I also tried to find a faster an more efficient retry strategy with pausing or spinning up the drive after some read errors.

For the future I have planned to support VCD and maybe audio - but we'll see....

[LakersFan]

Yes, I agree this is MUCH more user friendly for me, specifically the GUI. Thanks for taking the time to write it. I'm looking forward to trying it out. (Then again, hopefully I won't have to any time soon.)

Take care,
LF

[marsoupilami]

A few bugfixes ...
NEW VERSION - ALSO AVAILABLE HERE
http://www.geocities.com/marsoupilamis/

Please visit the homepage of NERO AG to get the WNASPI.DLL and read the terms of use
http://www.nero.com/nero6/eng/WNASPI32.DLL.html

[mgpc]

Thank you!!! :-)

It's nice, I like it, I need it.

Thanks again.

Mark

I ran it last night over an 'unreadable' DVD and it's pulled off all but 200 sectors so far (170 passes) and it's still getting data off, great!

A couple of minor things, it would be good (for me) if the scroller in the log window would stay at the bottom, ie always show the last messages.

My drive seems to cope better, and read more data, if I cycle the tray occasionally, i.e it just picked up another ~20 sectors after I cycled the tray, after >20 passes with getting no data. Could you consider an option to cycle the tray every so many passes, (or maybe after 'n' passes with 0 sectors read)?

Thanks

Mark

[Trahald]

this program is better than that other one (which i tried a few months ago.) the auto loop and import are great! (my wifi isnt stable enough for the network option)

[LakersFan]

Really really minor bug, but the 'X" button in the upper right corner doesn't work for me...

Other than that,

[cnn66]

Interesting! I've been recently hunting for something like this.
LOL

[marsoupilami]

@LakersFan
Yes - I disabled the small "x" button but did'nt grey it out...

@mgpc
The main reason for a new version was an crash on initialisation with "host adapter 0 not present"...

The "cycle tray" option I had considered when I started to write this program - but I encountered a lot of problems especially when a disk makes troubles while mounting.
When I played around with some "bad burned" disks I experienced that only cycling the tray doesn't have a great effect - don't ask me why.
A really good practice was to cool down the disk putting it into the freezer for some minutes and to reload it manually. Maybe there are microscopic air bubbles (?) inside the medium which are decreasing in size temporarily at low temperature.
However - I'll think on it when i continue optimizing the retry strategy...

[marsoupilami]

I've just put the final 1.3 on my page.

* The small "x" button is working now.
* The logwindow is scrolling down
* A progressbar is added - not very precise but it's obvious now what's going on ...

@mgpc
With the "cycle tray" option I didn't succseed - A further problem is how to "re-unlock" the drive if You like to backup a RCP protected disk... (The first unlocking would be easy with every player)
I leghtened the pause times instead - for me it seems to be more effective.

[Mug Funky]

i just tried it on a poorly burnt Z-CLV disc (ie the 3rd speed zone and beyond would not read at all on my 111D), and it worked nicely. excellent.

so could this be extended to CSS'd discs? i'm still not clear if it can rip the full 2054 sectors, and if so whether it's possible to deCSS the image file made (i'm guessing probably not unless the DVD is still in the drive). not a big deal because most of the bad discs i get are burns, but every now and then you get a badly pressed disc, or one that's been buggered in transit or by careless users.

maybe i'll just try one and see what happens i wouldn't expect you to implement deCSS yourself, as that could put a legal compromise on a program that's too useful for that kind of bother.

[cd090580]

Hi,
juste one question. How many pass it does on bad sectors ?????

20000 bad sectors = 20000 passes ???? I hope not

[marsoupilami]

Originally Posted by Mug Funky

... i wouldn't expect you to implement deCSS yourself, as ...

I didn't spent much time on thinking of RCP, deCSS, decryption and so on - I have no idea how that works and I guess there could be a simple way:

An RCP disk can be "opened" with every player software or by selecting the drive with DVDD.
The resulting image will be still encrypted - but with Daemon Tools You can mount it and DVDD might decrypt the virtual drive?
Many thanks to LighningUK for that great program

Maybe it's also possible to load AnyDVD with "ignore read errors" turned off - but I never tried all this...