this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2025
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How to automatically read DVDs that have I/O errors? (lemmy.zip)
submitted 4 days ago by hodgepodgin@lemmy.zip to c/linux@programming.dev
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I have a collection of DVDs and CDs that I’ve been meaning to archive. However, most of them must be scratched because whenever I try to read them, they get an I/O error in a random spot of one of the 1gb files. I heard that you can do some magic with ddrescue and possibly even read them in reverse, but don’t know the limitations of that when it comes to USB DVD readers. How can I copy these reliably?

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[–] hodgepodgin@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I believe they were burned, since we have blanks laying around. The data was migrated from tape I think.

[–] elucubra@piefed.social 1 points 20 hours ago

Ok, you may be facing disk rot. Disk rot is much more prevalent on self recorded that commercial recordings.

ddrescue is probably your best bet.There are other options, but I've always had the best results with ddrescue. There is no way to fix disk rot.