How to recover a Quick Erased CD-RW

There are two ways that a CD-RW can be erased (or formatted). One is Quick and the other is Full. For a Full erase, there is no possibility of recovery, but for Quick Erase, CnW Recovery software will in effect unerase the disk. It is thought to be a unique feature of recovery software.

Forensically, it can be very useful to know how a disk was used previously, and an unerased disk can be examined to see previous files that have not been overwritten by later files. As a normal user, accidental erasing is often a problem, but CnW Recovery has the solution.

The procedure is simple. When the recover function is selected for a CD, if the disk is detected as blank, and an RW, the option box to unerase will be displayed and enabled. When this option is selected, a second menu will be displayed where parameters have to be selected. At this point, some trial and error may be required as the unerase needs to know the mode that the disk was previously formatted in. This can only be determined from previous knowledge, or by trial and error.

If the disk is unerased in the wrong physical format, it may be blanked again, and new options tried.

Quick format DVD-RW recovery

CnW are currently working on a solution for quick erased DVD-RW disks. A procedure is being developed that does actually unerase Quick formatted disks and it is hoped that this can be added to the main software later in 2008. If you have a disk that needs to be recovered, CnW Recovery will do this as part of their normal recovery service.

This option is part of the forensic software package, and so not standard on every system. However, CnW Recovery will do an unerase as a service at a fixed cost of £25 for CD-RW and £35 for DVD-RW including return UK postage.