Funky CD of an LP Restoration

[DJBohn]

I ran into a wierd quirk with a CD of a restoration I did a few years back. I've been making a few MP3 copies of restored LP's on CD to send to my brother. All of the CD's worked great without any problems what so ever, except for one. I have tried using DC6 to put them as WAV's to the hard drive, but it keeps comming up as errors & wouldn't allow the procedure. I've tried using CDex to convert them to WAV's, but I get anywhere from 30 to 60 errors on every song! I even switched to my better CD ROM drive but got the same problems. And when I keep trying to do it with CDex, I would get the "Blue Screen Of Death" - Fatal Exceptions. I've even tried to Copy & Past, but end up with nothing more than a 44k (or b?) file that looks like just a shortcut. But the funny thing is, the CD plays just fine in all my players! My only guess is, I may have done my copy from the original CD restoration (that went to the owner of the LP) instead of from the original WAV's on the hard drive, and somehow EZ CD Creator changed all the tracks on my CD copy to Read Only files. Has anyone else ever run into a problem like this? Is there any way to extract the songs from my CD copy?

[Dan McDonald]

DJ - I was thinking that they were set to read only. Usually, all you have to do is copy to your hard drive, highlight them all, select properties, and look for the checkbox at the bottom of the box.

I would try extracting them in data mode if they are in mp3 format. Just click on my computer, explore, find the cd, explore again, edit, select all, copy, then go to the spot on the hard drive and edit/paste. Then select them all and see if you can 'un-read only' them.

[cromag]

DJ -- How old is the CD that's giving you problems? Does it play in a CD player or your computer? I'm just wondering if the CD may have deteriorated.

[DJBohn]

Hi Dan - They are all WAV files & the CD plays just fine otherwise. I think what happened was I didn't have the original restored WAV tracks on my computer anymore, so I probably took the owner's CD, copied the tracks again to my hard drive (without changing their properties to "Archive"), and just burned them as they were. (doubled up on the "Read Only" properties?) I've also gone into "My Computer" and have tried "Open" and "Explore", and hi-lighted the tracks, but I am not being allowed to copy them to the hard drive - I just keep getting what look like 44k short cuts.

Cromag - The CD was burned in 2003 & I used a good quality blank. All my CD's after or before (even the same brand) are not giving me any problems like this one. I've also looked over the playing surface & there are no scratches either. Even the burned section is obviously visable compared to the un-burned portion.

[Geebster]

DJ

From your description, it doesn't sound like the attributes are a problem or you would get "access denied" screen if you tried to do anything with them. You can easily check this by going to where they are stored and right click on the file (s). Go to properties and at the bottom of the main screen it will list the attributes of the file. It is impossible to "double" the attribute or anything. From what you describe it sound like just a disk that is filled with errors. The disk may look flawless, but that doesn't mean that errors aren't present. Some extraction programs are better than others with dealing with errors.

GB

[DJBohn]

Hey GB, you may be right on the errors. I did manage to extract the first track on to the hard drive. I opened it up with DC6, & at the beginning of the track it sounded flawless. But as the playback progressed further into the track, noise & distortion gradually got higher & higher. By the time the playback reached the end of the song, the noise & sputtering was so bad you couldn't even tell what the song was! I think that's the first bad blank CD I've ever used. But it still plays on home type players. (???)

[Geebster]

Hey GB, you may be right on the errors. I did manage to extract the first track on to the hard drive. I opened it up with DC6, & at the beginning of the track it sounded flawless. But as the playback progressed further into the track, noise & distortion gradually got higher & higher. By the time the playback reached the end of the song, the noise & sputtering was so bad you couldn't even tell what the song was! I think that's the first bad blank CD I've ever used. But it still plays on home type players. (???)

Usually the error correction is far superior on home CD players, than even with software routines on a PC. Unfortunately, I've had many CD's that played fine on home players, that refused to be copied or transferred.

GB

[Craig Maier]

Since some high quality CD players have a SPIDIF (digita) output, maybe you can play it on a CD player and transfer it to your hard drive via a sound card with a digital input.

Just an idea.

[DJBohn]

Craig, that's a great idea! I do have digital ins/outs with my sound card. But I'm going to have to see if one of my friends has such a player. I had a very nice home machine several years back with digital outs, but after 8 years of use the spindle for turning the CD's went bad and there were no replacment ones available. I do have a Radio Shack "walkman" type player (don't ask!) with digital outs, but the last CD I put in, the laser for some reason scratched the CD so bad I couldn't use it on any player anymore. I have not used it since.

[Geebster]

You can try it, but I've found an error is an error whether it comes from the digital outs or on the CD itself. I've had better luck with software programs that are specially designed to see and repair the errors prior to transfer. And at this point, who knows for sure.

My first step would be to run the CD with an error detection software program, to see if it's errors you are dealing with in the first place.

GB

[Shaman]

Unstoppable copier has worked well for me in the past.

http://www.roadkil.net/unstopcp.html

[Scotty]

Easy Audio Copy

I have used this program to recover some very bably scratched CD's. It has so far been great in coping and fixing a problem CD. If you have a lot of errors it will take a long time to rip the CD. This is a free program that also uses the lame encoder.

[Geebster]

I have used this program to recover some very bably scratched CD's. It has so far been great in coping and fixing a problem CD. If you have a lot of errors it will take a long time to rip the CD. This is a free program that also uses the lame encoder.

Yes, it is a pretty good program, however, there are some CD's that it will not even be able to play or copy. For those instances I use a commercially available program designed for that purpose.

GB

[DJBohn]

Hey all! I have not been back here for a while - lots of other things going on. Noticed one of my old posts here revisited... I ended up having to re-do the restoration of that album. The original burn (as well as the customer's copy) had far too many errors to be playable, especially toward the end of the disc. The problem on the CD's were because my Plextor burner was on its way out. I have since replaced it (as well as that computer) with an HP DVD LightScribe unit & have not had any more bad burns. I do wish I could replace that CD only Plextor burner with one or 2 more like it. It never burned a coaster until after about a couple of hundred discs! DVD/CD burners are everywhere but CD only models are getting much harder to find these days.

[Brian]

I do wish I could replace that CD only Plextor burner with one or 2 more like it.

One of the "best price" services that are bannered with a Google Search might turn one up, or have you tried the new "Want it now" feature on eBay? Good hunting.
Brian