Trying to open an old cd on a newer mac

[Diane Farrar]

I have a cd full of photographs that was created on 2002 on a windows computer. I was able to open all the files on it on an older mac I used to have back then. Now I have a newer mac & I can't get the folders to open. Well, they open but show no data in them. I have tried a few file viewers which show that the disc is almost completely full. The disc won't even open by double clicking it's icon, but I can get to the contents showing the folders & other documents using Preview, but still showing empty folders & the other documents won't open either.
Is there a way to retrieve these photos, any software I can try? Help!

 

[chscag]

Welcome to our forums Diane.

Is there a way to retrieve these photos, any software I can try? Help!

Do you have any friends that own a Windows computer that could perhaps try the CD for you? I have had problems with older CDs myself that I burned with a Windows program. Usually, the best way to get those to display is to open them on the original computer they were buned on (likely not possible for you) or at least try on a Windows computer.

Other than that, there are Mac programs which can try to get those files to open for you or at least to copy them to your Mac. I found this software which seems to state that is can recover your files. I don't believe it's free though. Good luck and let us know if that works for you.

 

[Diane Farrar]

Thank you. I downloaded the demo version of the software & it is slowly scanning the disk, but the estimated time keeps increasing, up to 2 1/2 days now. Is this normal? Is it safe to leave the disk in the optical drive for this long?

 

[chscag]

That does sound like a very long time to scan a disk, however, it should do no harm to the optical drive. My iMac here at home does not have an optical drive built in so I have to use an external one instead. If it looks like the program is getting nowhere, I would stop it and maybe look for different software. A google search brings up several different programs which can do the same thing. You might want to try something else.

If after all is said and done with no results, you might want to consider professional recovery. But that is usually expensive.

 

[Diane Farrar]

It finished scanning during the night, and it did recover the images, but I had to buy the software in order to save the files to my hard drive. Now it seems to be taking forever to save the files, but as long as the images are saved, it's all good. Thank you for your help! Aloha

 

[chscag]

Glad to hear that it worked for you. And remember our forums if you need any further help with your Mac or its software.

 

[TJack]

That reply that you received about trying a Windows Computer sounds like your best option. But I would like to say that CD's and DVD's have a life expectancy especially the older ones! It depends on how they where stored and what materials where used to make them. Not all of them are the same (it might take some research to find out). Myself I am new to Mac but have been using Windows Machines for years! And yes to me 2.5 days does seem like a very long time to scan a CD with less then 1 Gig Data (if I remember correctly 700 Meg or so). And if you can get the data off it is time to store it in another method (Thumb Drives are dirt cheap now).