accurate ripping of damaged CDs : is cdparanoia the answer ?

Posted by: JamH on 05 September 2008

A friend asked me to try to recover a CD of his which has various scratches [I think his child damaged it].

I tried to extract it as follows [on a dual boot system with windows-XP abd RedHat-linux]. Hardware is EMPREX DVD rewriter [I bought it for the software] and PLEXTOR PX-716A....

Results .. XP
with EAC [Exact Audio Copy] on XP
EMPREX reported errors and tended to jam at the end of a track. Stopping the extraction and starting again from the problem track seemed to work.
Plextor could not at first recognise the disk. Eventually got it to run and then it locked up the whole system [needed a reboot].

Results .. Linux
With cdparanoia on RedHat
EMPREX reported no errors
Plextor has trouble recognising the disk. Never got it to work.
But system never jammed or needed a reboot ...

Not sure what this means .. is the best option cdparanoia ?

James H.

Of course it assumes a linux system ....

ends==
Posted on: 05 September 2008 by Jim Lawson
How does the cdparanoia track sound? Any clicks?
Posted on: 05 September 2008 by JamH
I have it on my computer but have not listened to it -- my friend has gone home with it on a memory stick.

I suppose I should write it to CD and listen to it [but its ABBA -- not my choice].
Posted on: 05 September 2008 by Jim Lawson
Let you friend listen to it and they can inform you of any pops. Sounds like cdparanoia is your best choice. I've had great success with it on badly damaged CDs.

Let us know how it turns out.
Posted on: 05 September 2008 by Steve S1
I have had a lot of success just ripping with correction, then burning a new CD - is this one beyond ripping?

Steve
Posted on: 05 September 2008 by garyi
DOes the cd have protection, the only time I had my computer lock up was with a copy protected one.
Posted on: 06 September 2008 by John R.
Usually all Plextor drives are very good when it comes to reading CDs and DVDs with scratches. I have Plextor 760 (CD and DVD writer) and Premium 2 (only CD writer) and the latter is slightly better. What really impressed me yesterday was the ability of my HDX to rip CDs with a lot of scratches (bought them second hand).
Posted on: 06 September 2008 by JamH
The CD was just badly damaged -- there was no copy protection.
Posted on: 06 September 2008 by DaveBk
Have you tried metal polish on the CD to try and remove some of the scratches? I've rescued a few badly damaged CDs with a bottle of 'Brasso' and much rubbing with a soft cloth. This really is a last resort before binning the offending CD, but it does work.
Posted on: 10 September 2008 by JamH
DaveBk : thanks for the advice

John R. : I think my plextor drive may be giving problems -- it cannot recognise verbatim cd-r's

James H.
Posted on: 10 September 2008 by JamH
My problems with the plextor drive [with windows XP] seem to be software problems ..

I have restored my system to a backup from a few months ago and the plextor drive now seems to work.

I use partimage [a linux program] to do this sort of thing and I recommend it ...

James H.