Data Recovery from Various Media

A Backup Article Contributed by Andrew Whitehead

Data Recovery from Floppy Discs

Compared with a complex hard drive, data recovery from a floppy disc is quite straightforward. Floppy discs need to be robust to operate in a hostile environment of dirt, dust, and moisture. Despite being designed to cope with this, poor environment or mishandling may result in damage.

If you cannot read a floppy, try using another floppy drive to see whether the problem is in the drive or the floppy. If that doesn't solve it, open the metal window cover and check the disc surface for damage. The surface is shiny, so scratches on the surface are easy to spot. If you find a scratch your your magnetic media is physically damaged. Data recovery from damaged areas is unlikely as the magnetic bits are no longer there. There is still a good chance of data recovery from other parts of the disk, so if the data is valuable contact a professional data recovery service.

If you find no scratch it could be particles on disc surface. This can sometimes be solved by gently blowing clean air through the open metal window while simultaneously rotating the disc. The 'puffers' sold by photographic shops for cleaning cameras are ideal for this.

Data Recovery from Zip Drives

Zip Drives and the like are extremely robust, so data recovery is rarely needed. On the downside, as they work at a much higher spin speeds than floppy discs (3000rpm against 300rpm for a floppy) and the enclosure is more tightly closed, data recovery is more difficult if it suddenly refuses to read or write.

As with a floppy, ask a friend or colleague and try to read it using another Zip drive to ascertain that the problem with the Zip disc, not in the drive.

Blowing air into a Zip drive is not a good idea, the slider/disc interface is very delicate. If you need to recover data from the disc, your only option now is a professional data recovery service.

Data Recovery from CD/DVD

Problems with reading CDs or DVD are usually contamination of the mirror surface by particles, fingerprints, or in the worst cases scratches.

Data on CDs is read in a circumferential direction, so to clean your CD use light, radial, strokes as the drive's optic is less sensitive to any radial scratches you make while cleaning.

Data on CDs is protected on the mirror side by a layer of lacquer, on the label side by polycarbonate. The data itself takes the form of shallow pits in the polycarbonate matrix, covered by a thin layer of reflective aluminum. A scratch deep enough to damage the pits means that data is permanently lost. Fortunately CDs are very robust items, and not all scratches mean irreversible damage.

Shallow scratches can be polished out with mild abrasives such as toothpaste or metal polish. Remember to use radial strokes, and clean away the residue. Deeper scratches can be filled using furniture polish or car wax. Cover the entire disc surface and, using radial strokes, polish using a clean cloth.