This is your annual WAKE-UP CALL! All those CDs and DVDs you’ve burned over the last decade to back up all those precious pictures, music and movies may experience bit rot. That’s right. They may be damaged by scratches or temperature and humidity variations. Most commercial CDs and DVDs will survive better than your own custom discs, but they all are prone to have problems after sitting for a long period.
Before you finish this article, please go over to YouTube, and watch EposVox’s video on how to recover data from your optical discs. It’s a 12-minute investment that will provide you with an incredible amount of information on how to keep from losing all those precious pictures, movies and even music you’ve stored on optical media.
I would recommend getting two USB optical drives from different manufacturers. That way, if one drive doesn’t read a given disc, you can try the other and see if there is any difference. If you have a tower and can install an optical drive in a bay, that would be even faster for most operations.
Next, invest in a good piece of bulk file copy software. Here are two products that work with both Mac and Windows.
TeraCopy. It’s one of the best-known bulk copy software products on the market today. It works to copy files between computer systems and multiple media sources, regardless of the operating system. If the software encounters an error while copying files, it will try again to recover the file. If the recovery doesn’t work, it will skip the file and go to the next file and then provide a log of files with problems at the end of the job. It’s available for Windows and Macintosh.
UltraCopier. This open source software works across platforms, including Windows, Mac and Linux. This software can handle any file copy process, regardless of the size and destination. Ultracopier is faster than your default system tools for copying files. Plus, it provides advanced features, which include start/resume copy processes, searches through the copy list, and speed limits.
Finally, after you’ve copied all your super valuables to your computer and extra external disk drive, you should include all of it in your overall backup program. That means you have an extra copy on a separate device locally and a copy on a safe cloud storage solution.
Before you finish this article, please go over to YouTube, and watch EposVox’s video on how to recover data from your optical discs. It’s a 12-minute investment that will provide you with an incredible amount of information on how to keep from losing all those precious pictures, movies and even music you’ve stored on optical media.
I would recommend getting two USB optical drives from different manufacturers. That way, if one drive doesn’t read a given disc, you can try the other and see if there is any difference. If you have a tower and can install an optical drive in a bay, that would be even faster for most operations.
Next, invest in a good piece of bulk file copy software. Here are two products that work with both Mac and Windows.
TeraCopy. It’s one of the best-known bulk copy software products on the market today. It works to copy files between computer systems and multiple media sources, regardless of the operating system. If the software encounters an error while copying files, it will try again to recover the file. If the recovery doesn’t work, it will skip the file and go to the next file and then provide a log of files with problems at the end of the job. It’s available for Windows and Macintosh.
UltraCopier. This open source software works across platforms, including Windows, Mac and Linux. This software can handle any file copy process, regardless of the size and destination. Ultracopier is faster than your default system tools for copying files. Plus, it provides advanced features, which include start/resume copy processes, searches through the copy list, and speed limits.
Finally, after you’ve copied all your super valuables to your computer and extra external disk drive, you should include all of it in your overall backup program. That means you have an extra copy on a separate device locally and a copy on a safe cloud storage solution.
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