9 Mar
2006
9 Mar
'06
10:41 p.m.
I haven't done as much with damaged data CDs as
with "odd" format
CDs, but I've found that Linux and NetBSD have *far* fewer issues with
burned media vs reader issues than Windows or MacOS. I regularly use
disks burned in Linux (on *cheap* media) in RRD42s on VAX, old 68K Macs
with 300i drives, etc.
I think a lot of the "CD reader" issues
are really "CD writing
software" issues. A lot of CD-copy software will insist that all the
world's ISO9660 unlss you beat it up first. Even dd won't produce a
bootable image in some formats unless you tweak the blocksize. (AIX
v.<any> and IRIX v6.5 come to mind) Do some research on the format
you're copying and the software you're using, life gets much smoother.
My first choice is XCDRoast- mindless burning/reading for pretty much anything, runs on
almost all graphics-capable platforms. Sadly it only recognizes images with the extension
.iso, but you can just rename .efsimg or .ods2img to .iso and vise-versa when you need to
(don't know if this counts as "beating it up"). Seems to be pretty good
about slowing down and rereading, too (imaged a scrached Libc5 linux distro that had been
in the garage uncased for ~6 years, took a while but it worked. The CD would not read for
install, but read for copy O.K.)
Setup can require a bit of typing (e.g. the dd'ing required for creating SGI EFS
cds.)