Recover data from a quick- erased CDRW/DVDRW disc

Procedure used to recover data from a quick-erased CD/DVD-RW disc
1. Make a file of exactly the size of the cd/dvdrw disc's capacity.
(this step may not be needed)
2. With Nero I created a new project and added the file to it so that I have the disc filled. I gues you can also fill up the disc with other files.
The reason why I fill the disc is because I want Nero to make a session that uses the entire disc. Like I wrote earlier in this thread I experienced that my CD/DVD-Drive refuses to read off the disc beyond the session's boundaries. When you quick-erase a disc there is no session anymore so the drive will not read at all. Burning a new session will overwrite the data and burning only a small session will NOT make the drive read the other data that is still on the disc.
The reason why I used the one big file is so that I could later on recognize which part of the disc was overwritten by this file because this file contained all zeros (0 x00).
3. I pressed burn and selected disc-at-once. Then while Nero was burning the leadin I pressed cancel. My CD/DVD-Drive finished writing the lead-in and Nero reported an error.
This is what was accomplished however: Now the disc contains a session that says that the used disc size is the complete disc. Nero did not get to writing file because I cancelled it. Good thing because I don't want Nero to write any files because my old data will get overwritten!
I gues it works the same with different writing software. Another method that I used during a test was simply press the reset button of the computer when the burning software was done with writing the lead-in and started with the files.
4. I had to restart the computer after cancelling burning.
With the cdrw disc inserted I saw in "my computer" that windows recognized that the disc was 650MB, clicking on it gave an error. Good so far!
Now with IsoBuster you can extract the sectors from a disc to a file. This is what I did.
I gues that if you have data- recovery software at this point it will be usefull because now (if all went well;)) the CD/DVD-Drive WILL read data from the entire disc. Anyway, I used ISO-Buster because the files that I needed to recover where a bit odd for nowadays (.XM,.S3 M,.MP3):
In IsoBuster I had to do several steps:
Step 1: Find out from and to which sector the drive will read
By choosing "Sector View" you can look at any given sector.
Here I found out what the first and the last sectors where that are readable. (Hint I used the method for the old game: "Gues a number below 100, I'll tell if it is higher or lower than what you gues")
Step 2: Extract the actual sectors
By choosing "Extract From-To" you can extract any given range of sectors to a file. My disc was a data-disc so I choose the first extraction type "User data, 2048 bytes/block...".
In the end I got a.tao file which was about 650MB. I ran several programs on it to look for files inside a file by searching for file-header-paterns:
1 . Multi Ripper 2.80 (for DOS, for the.XM files. It does many other file formats as well (jpg,png, bmp,wav,etc,etc +100 ). Try google with this query: Multi Ripper 2.80. I still had the file from good old days but I saw several good search results)
2 . Winamp for mp3.
Winamp will scan any file when you give it the extension.mp3 and play it as one big song (so I renamed the.tao file to.mp3 ). I used the discwriter to get a.wav and the Adobe Audition to manually cut and save my songs. I looked at the MP3 file format and it is hard to find an mp3 file in a big file because it has no clear header just a bunch of mpeg-frames in most cases for me. A lot of my files had no ID3 v2 or ID3 v1 tags... But after a couple of hours I recovered everything.
Finally a list of used stuff:
Software:
- IsoBuster v1.9 and above
- Nero 6.8 and above
- Multi Ripper 2.80 and above
- WinAmp v5.02 and above
- Windows XP Pro NL (patched up)
Hardware:
- NEC DVDRW ND1300 A 1.06
Disc:
- some old 4 speed CDRW/DVDRW

How to recover MOST of scratched CD/DVD data discs

For dvd do the same thing as that in cd
I learn an old thecnique to how to recover damaged or scratched disks
with some lost of data. In this case i have one borrowed game - MAX PAYNE 2
with a chunck of 4 mb lost with a scratch in CD1 Install. Here we cover some
special thecniques of how to create a full working CD from the scratched one.
First some tools will be needed:
1 . Alcohol 120%
2. UltraISO
3 . Windows XP/2000
3. Small piece of cotton
4. Dry cleaner paper
5. Finally, oil for cooking.
First step - preparing the CD
Get the cotton and drop some water, start cleaning vertically the surface of CD.
Do it 3 times and dry the water with a piece of dry cleaner paper. With a new piece
of cotton, drop some oil for cooking and start to wet the surface like you are
washing the CD with the oil. Dry carefully now. Some particles of oil will stay on the
microsurface of the scrath. It's okay. Seems the oil helps the laser of the CD/DVD driver
to read the surface again. Sure this will work with small unreadable scratchs - some hard
scratchs loose parts of the surface of the CD where we have data and it's lost forever.
But if it is loosed try anyway. Whith this tip 80% of the small scratched CD's coud be
recovered.
Second Step - testing the CD
With Alcohol 120% make an ISO - image making wizard - and lets see if the app can
read the loosed surface. In my case Alcohol 120 % had recovered 60% of the data.
This is not enough. Have tryed other appz, they do not recover all the data. But the
CD/DVD driver laser CAN recover all data in this case. the data is still there, what we do?
third step - making the new CD
With the main copy system of windows explorer you can do it. Just create one folder
with the same name of the CD label for future burn reference, and copy the CD content
to the folder. When the CD copy process find the scratch, in majority of the cases, it's
slow down the reading and will recover ALL loosed data.If not, it just tell you there's
an unreadable sector. In this case your CD is lost. But it's not my case, finally
windows explorer got all the data from the scratch and made a copy in the folder.
with the ultraISO, wrote the original CD label, drop the content of the folder and
save as Iso. You can Test the new CD just mounting the iso in the Alcohol 120%. In my
case i did ISO of the two discs from MAX PAYNE 2 and tested installing from the mounted
ISO. Works like a charm. I got the 4 mb lost again. So, I have burned the CD and now i
have a working copy from the scratched one.
Sounds too bizzarre, but works. Course you can jump the cleaning process and try to copy
the content with Windows explorer. But in my case did not work without oil...

Best way to "Recover" forgotten Windows Vista password

useful trick to recover forgotten Windows Vista password . I have added method to hack Windows Vista user account in my post Hack Windows Vista admin account.
Recovering lost passwords is not a problem new to Windows Vista. Sure, in a manner similar to Windows XP, Vista will enable users to create an adjacent password hint that the user can turn to in case of need. But what about a severe case of amnesia. No password hint will point you in the right direction. Fortunately, Windows Vista has a built in mechanism designed to help with password recovery.
First off though, you should know that if the account with the misplaced password is not the administrator, then recovery is not even a problem.The administrator can simply change the password and allow the user access back to the account. This action however is not without its downside. If the administrator performs the said task, then you will not be able to access encrypted files, email messages and personal credentials. This is a trade-off that might be, or might not be worth it, depending on the context and on the information you risk losing.


The Windows Vista password recovery mechanism applies mainly to computers that are not part of a domain. If you have made your way to the User Accounts in Windows Vista via Control Panel then you might have noticed the "Create a password reset disk" option in the top left corner.
From within a Windows Vista account, a user can create a password reset disk. A user only needs to create a single password reset disk and store it in a secure location. The disk is a preemptive measure that is actually independent of the account's password. Users of the disk will be able to reset the account's password.
The guys over here might now be able to overcome their lost Windows Vista passwords . If you know any popular method for recovering Windows Vista passwords...

How To Reset, Retrieve Windows Xp User Password if forgotten or losted.

IF U R IN TROUBLE ? LOST YOUR XP LOGIN USERNAME AND PASSWORD......
============================== ==================== ===================
You can get in to anu user account if you are using windows administrative account its a simple methord !
STEP 1. CLCIK - START MENU !
STEP 2. TAKE " RUN "
STEP 3. RUN " mmc " - M icrosoft M anagement C onsole
There u get a new NEW WINDOW - name Console
STEP 4. Click FILE TAB
STEP 5. TAKE " ADD / REMOVE "
STEP 6. Click " Add.. " - (Child window)
STEP 7. " Add Local User and Groups " From the category
STEP 8. THEN CLICK - OK
STEP 9. CLICK USER
Now u can see all USER account
STEP 10. Right Click on any user u want to change !
STEP 11. Choose " Set Password "
STEP 12. Type NEWPASSWORD - and click OK !
Process Over ! Now you can Logout.... then Login with other user ( that u change password ) with Newpassword !
Enjoy...