Restoring optical media with Dvdisaster
Lifebuoy
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Even optical storage media are subject to wear. Dvdisaster helps you prevent data loss due to defective CDs, DVDs, or Blu-ray discs with a manageable amount of effort.
Optical storage media enjoy great popularity and are used above all in multimedia applications and often as backup media. However, these cheap plastic discs also have disadvantages: Aging processes cause read errors over time, ultimately making the entire medium unusable and leading to complete data loss in extreme cases.
Predicting when such problems will arise is difficult; it depends not least on environmental influences and the original quality of the medium. If you want to use optical media for long-term archiving, you are advised to exercise due diligence. Using a small program named Dvdisaster [1] can effectively help prevent loss of data on optical storage media.
All the major distributions have Dvdisaster in their repositories; you can typically avoid building from the source code [2] and install the program easily using your distribution's package manager. Depending on the desktop used, you will then find a starter for Dvdisaster below Multimedia or System Tools. Note that if you use a Blu-ray burner, you need a Dvdisaster version from the current 0.72 branch; the predecessors do not support Blu-ray media.
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