DVD disk are common data storage medium of choice at offices and homes. Storing video data on DVD disk is a logical thing as it have up to 4.7Gb capacity of storage space. That’s about 2 hours or 120 minutes of DVD quality video playing time stored on one regular DVD disk.

Recently, I was asked to make a backup copy of a wedding video stored on a DVD disk. I gladly accept the request and used Nero StartSmart Essentials software which comes bundled with the desktop computer. Everything seems to be fine until 79% of copying which then it throws an error of unreadable sector. I could not successfully make copy; even ignoring the errors and waiting for ages doesn’t help.

Weddings are a special occasion and loosing an important video as such would be a terrible loss. A quick check showed that the DVD disk got some scratches. If data on the DVD’s are critical, special storage method should be done to make sure they are in good condition. This is a vital step in data backup and storage practice.

I tried to find some ways to retrieve data from the damaged and scratched DVD. Making sure the physical DVD disk is clean by using water, toothpaste and special cleaning agents for optical devices. These are some of the common remedy before trying to read the DVD media again. It’s not 100% that scratches will be gone, but it improved the chance of data retrieval.

If the disk scratch was so deep that it could not be remedied by the above solution. Try to copy the DVD content to the computer hard disk using Nero’s Image Burner software with ignore errors option set. Another way is to use IsoBuster Pro software to extract the DVD content to the computer hard disk. The IsoBuster Pro software would allow unreadable DVD sector to be omitted, replaced with zeros, or replaced with dummy data. This data backup recovery method could recover data partially from DVD disk which could not be copied due to scratches.