Read a disk?

[Grandpappy]

Is there any FREE software about that will read a disc and tell (or show!) me what's on it? I know that a particular disc has got 2.8G on it but I cant get my D drive to read it. It has software on it that I need to reinstall!
Any help will be much appreciated...Happy New Year!!

[Lil O'lady]

This might be a stoopid answer, but have you tried my computer, right-clicking the disk and 'explore'

Then you should see all the data on the disk

[Grandpappy]

Yes,I've tried all that,even - OPEN - SEARCH - PROPERTIES ,etc. it just shows the disc as empty??

[ACtheTROLL]

if the disc isn't readable .... software probably won't help

can you try the disc in other machine(s)

generally this problem is due to
faulty writer, faulty disc - in which case you are screwed
or - if you are lucky
read/write heads slightly out of alignment in which case alternative readers just might work OK

[The Builder]

AC Troll - years ago we used to use a sector editor to just read the code on a Dos HD - is that not possible with a DVD (Iguess that is the type of disk we're talking about)...:o)

[Grandpappy]

After several hours and reading lots of other similar problems I eventually downloaded 'ISOBuster 'and after the third attempt it read the disc, opened it and the software started copying itself to my hard drive. I then managed to copy the disc to my hard drive and am about to check the programmes are running correctly; so far the only problem seems to be with Word2002 saying an error in the autoexec file or something!!

Anyway,must get on ,but thanks to everyone who has tried to help me. I'd like to be able to say that if I can help anybody - but I'd better not!
Cheers

[ACtheTROLL]

I know what you mean .... and you are right .... my feeling in this case was that while you could recover part of a document .... part of a prog is still just gobbledy gook.
(ther are still some cd/dvd recovery progs .... but not for an .exe

As I said ... working from my own experience it's 50-50
an old cd that won't read on the same machine later tends to be caused by the drive becoming mucky or the tracking less accurate

however .... in the light of grandpappy's last reply .... I'm off to get me a big slice of humble pie !!! ;-)