Are there any recovery tools for optical media?

Question

I've had a couple of DVD's  turned in to coasters recently and I was hoping that Linux could come to my rescue with some awesome 'raw-read' / recovery tools for optical media?
I burnt the discs in Windows 7 using InfraRecorder on a brand new Plextor drive (a 'PX-891SA') and these are my first attempts to burn discs with it so I'm a bit worried it could be a hardware fault!
I started off trying to back up some files to clear some space on my hard-drive, burning them to a dual-layer dvd, but the software kept failing to even start the burn process -- that was until I realised that I needed to run the program "as Administrator" (in Windows). It did then manage to burn the disc (I was using "Session-at-Once" mode) however when it came to the end of the burn process / the start of the 'verify data' phase it threw an error saying the write process had failed! Windows couldn't access the disc / data and (I think) still thought the disk was empty. So I restarted the burning application and used a function to just 'close' the whole disc. This seemed to work because Windows was then able to recognise the disc and read the data, although accessing the disc was slow and sounded 'stutter' ish.
I then tried to write a single layer dvd to finish off the last couple of gig I had to back up, but again the software completed the burn phase only to report a 'fail' error right at the end (I'm assuming) before finalising the disc. Although this time I'd tried to create a multi-session disc by using the '2XXA' (or something) 'Multi-Session' iso9660 format. The result was that Windows couldn't read the disc and still thought it was empty, even after trying a forced 'close disc' operation! -- Linux however could read the disc and see that the data had in fact been burnt to the disc (although I've not yet tried copying it in Linux!).
Finally I needed to burn a load of archives to a couple of discs (totaling ~9GiB) -- starting with a dual-layer dvd first everything seemed to be working fine, the burn process started okay and the write buffer was full etc., until at what I assume was the layer change-over it all came to a grinding halt and threw another 'write operation failed' error, only this time I can't even mount the disk in Linux....see 'dmesg | tail' output below:
[ 5758.353005] ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
[ 5758.353015] ISOFS: Interleaved files not (yet) supported.
[ 5758.353016] ISOFS: File unit size != 0 for ISO file (1472).
[ 5758.353019] ISOFS: changing to secondary root
[ 5758.353035] ISOFS: Interleaved files not (yet) supported.
[ 5758.353036] ISOFS: File unit size != 0 for ISO file (1536).
[ 5758.353037] isofs_fill_super: root inode is not a directory. Corrupted media?
Does anyone have any thought or suggestions that might help?
- Is it likely to be a hardware fault? (I bought a Plextor because I thought they were one of the best!)
Maybe even if I could just close the session all would not be lost?
-- Thanks in advance --
>>>> UPDATE >>>>
I tried to use ddrescue....it was fine until it got to the end of the disk and then it sounded like the drive was chewing on a bag of pork scratchings
$ sudo ddrescue -v /dev/sr0 /mnt/odd/ddr.file ~/ddr.log
GNU ddrescue 1.16
About to copy 4029 MBytes from /dev/sr0 to /mnt/odd/ddr.file
Starting positions: infile = 0 B, outfile = 0 B
Copy block size: 128 sectors Initial skip size: 128 sectors
Sector size: 512 Bytes
Press Ctrl-C to interrupt
rescued: 4028 MB, errsize: 983 kB, current rate: 0 B/s
ipos: 4028 MB, errors: 1, average rate: 3310 kB/s
opos: 4028 MB, time since last successful read: 10.8 m
Splitting failed blocks...
Interrupted by user
...it was taking forever and getting nowhere so I just pressed 'ctrl+c'.....here's the log file:
# Rescue Logfile. Created by GNU ddrescue version 1.16
# Command line: ddrescue -v /dev/sr0 /mnt/odd/ddr.file /home/shodan/ddr.log
# current_pos current_status
0xF0213000 /
# pos size status
0x00000000 0xF0208000 +
0xF0208000 0x0000B000 -
0xF0213000 0x0000D000 /
0xF0220000 0x00000400 -
0xF0220400 0x0001FE00 /
0xF0240200 0x00000400 -
0xF0240600 0x0003FE00 /
0xF0280400 0x00000400 -
0xF0280800 0x00077600 /
0xF02F7E00 0x00000200 -
When I tried to mount the output file using $ sudo mount -ro loop /mnt/odd/ddr.file /mnt/vodd I got the same error as with the actual disc (natch)...
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop0,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so
Last edited by wwgfd (2012-12-14 13:18:41)

Answer 1

@chris_l -- yeah I was worried that might be the case, still I'm not sure if that explains why it keeps failing the burn process part way through?
I've tried this and that in Linux but without much luck. I'm still quite a noob with a lot of Linux things and this is the first time I'm trying anything to do with optical disks/drives etc. so I'm learning as I go...
The disk that failed in Windows but was 'readable' in Linux did just pass a run through ddrescue -- i.e. it created an output file okay and did not report any errors in the process.
However when I mounted the resulting image and tried to copy the files across the first folder reported an "input/ouput error" (just using gui copy+paste in Thunar file manager)
...the other folders did copy okay though!
It seems as though it's the lead-in / lead-out and disc finalizing process that are the main fail points with the burn operation. I don't know if InfraRecorder is any good or likely to be the problem? Anyway the drive cam with Nero (inc. Linux version) so might give either or both of these a go too, if they don't work either then at least I wont be short of something to rest a mug o' tea on
@ chris_l (again) -- the Plextor drives do have a "Vari-Rec" feature which allows a user to 'tweak' the laser power / output level so I might try this too.
@alphaniner -- thanks I've not seen this package before, I'm guessing it's a bit like cdparanoia but for dvds?!
Thanks for the help!
(pre-post) UPDATE >>> I've just mounted my Windows partition  in Linux so I'll have a crack at burning the files using cdrtools before I resort to throwing the dvd drive out of the window and chasing it around the yard with a lump hammer