CnW Recovery is a software only program and so there are limitations on the types of recovery it can do. It does rely on being abale to see the drive as a physical device within Windows, typically as a USB or IDE device.

If a drive has a failure of the controller board, or will not spin then no software only solution will work. If the drive is recognised as a physical drive, then there is a very high chance that CnW Recovery will beable to recover data.

For CDs and DVDs it is always recommended that a full RW drive is used to recover data.  These types of drives have features that will enable disks that have not been closed to be read

If there is any question of whether the program will work, the quick answer is to download the demo and try