Burn recovery discs to dvd

[Rekords]

I have formatted my Toshiba 5005-s504 laptop. The cd drive is only capable of reading dvd's and the three original Toshiba recovery discs are on cd's which the drive can't recognize. I need to transfer the recovery cd's to dvd's and have tried a few times unsuccessfully. This model had a common fault of the cd drive failing and only then able to read dvd's. This is also a legacy free machine where there is no option for bios settings, I'd be very grateful for any solution.

[dbminter]

When you say you tried unsuccessfully, what exactly did you try and why did they fail? Without that information, I can only offer a few vague options.

 

 

I don't know anything about laptops, but, do you have a USB port on it? If so, I'd just get an external USB drive and connect it up to the laptop. Then, and this infers that your laptop is still working, i.e. the hard drive isn't damaged, which from what you say, the only problem is with the internal DVD drive, you could transfer the CD's temporarily to the HD and then burn them to DVD's. Only thing I can think of that could be problem, but, I don't think it would be, is I've never tried burning a CD image to a DVD image. So, I don't know if there's any problem burning CD images to DVD. I would guess the CD's are bootable as they are recovery discs. You may then have to use ImgBurn to extract the boot sector and then create a bootable DVD in Build mode with that boot image and copy over the files and folders from the CD's into the Build job.

 

 

If there is no USB port on your laptop, you'd have to take the CD's to someone you know who would be willing to let you use their drive and PC to copy them.

[Rekords]

Thank you dbminter,

 

The three usb ports on the laptop haven't worked for a few years, again a common fault with this machine, I was using a pcmcia card with usb ports but this is not recognized and being a legacy free machine I cant change the bios. I tied to burn the first of three cd's using a cradle connecting the hard drive to a friends laptop and using the builder in imgburn but half way through it said it couldn't recognize a file, not sure but I think it was a cab file. If you could advise if it would be possible to burn all three cd's to the hard drive using a cradle and would this work and if so what is the correct way to transfer the recovery cd's using imburn,

 

Thanks again.

[dbminter]

So you're saying these recovery CD's are on the HD of your laptop? Meaning you don't actually have physical CD's? If that's the case, then, you'd need to do what you're doing by connecting the laptop to another computer.

 

 

There shouldn't have been a problem with a .CAB file. It sounds more like your laptop is having a problem transferring data in general.

[Rekords]

Hi, sorry for any confusion. I Have three physical recovery cd's and nothing on the hard drive. I need to know the correct procedure to copy these recovery cd's correctly to dvd's or if necessary onto the hard drive.

 

Thank you for your help.

[dbminter]

With ImgBurn, you will have to copy them to a hard drive. Either by using the Read mode or using the Build mode and copy the files over from the discs to a file on the HD.

 

 

I will outline what I consider the easiest and probably most likely to succeed steps to do what you're asking. First, I wouldn't use your laptop at all to do these steps. It already has some problems with it and it seems you tried to connect it to another computer and had difficulty transfer the files in Build mode. I would suggest you use Read and Write mode. I would also suggest using rewritable DVD media, if your laptop drive's DVD drive supports rewritable DVD media. You'll need to use someone else's computer to do this, so, they will need ImgBurn installed or you may be able to copy over the ImgBurn installed files from its folder on your laptop to a thumb drive and use that flash drive on the othe computer. I tested this and it appears to work. Copy over the ImgBurn.exe file and the Languages and Sounds folder, although you could probably get by without the Sounds folder.

 

 

Now, I tested the following and I couldn't get it to work, so, I would think you may not be able to get away with it. Start ImgBurn and choose Read from the Mode options. Read the first CD to an image on the HD. Then, choose Write from the Mode options. Load the image file you just created and Write it to a rewritable DVD. You will probably get a dialog saying "Your image doesn't appear to be of the correct format for burning onto a DVD." Selecting No will just cancel the operation. Try selecting Yes, hence one reason why you'll want to use rewritable DVD. If after selecting Yes you get a dialog that begins with the same message as above, then, it won't work this way. If it does work this way, then try to see if your laptop's drive will read the rewritable DVD. If it won't, you may have to write to a DVD-R or DVD+R and see if the drive will read that. And, if it does work, then, you'd want to write the images to DVD-R or DVD+R anyway. Repeat for the other 2 CD's.

 

 

The above didn't work with one test CD image I had, but it did work for a 2nd test of a bootable CD image used to recovery disk partitions in Macrium Reflect. However, I got some write retries and the Verfiy after burn did not work. It just got stuck at Device Ready. So, I suggest you start with the above first, but, you will probably have to go the next steps instead.

 

 

If the above doesn't work, you'll have to use Build mode. Select Build from Mode. Insert the first CD. Under Build, select the Advanced tab. Select Bootable Disc from Advanced. Check Make Image Bootable. Under Extract Boot Image, choose the drive that contains the CD inserted. Press the blue floppy disk icon. Save the boot image you're extracting to the HD. There may or may not be a boot image on this CD or the other 2 CD's. If there isn't, then, don't worry about making the image bootable so uncheck Make Image Bootable if you get an error message trying to extract the boot image. If you get a dialog saying "Would you like to use the boot image in your current project?" choose Yes. ImgBurn, as it says, will set the options you need for you. I recommend using Advanced input here, so, under Input, choose Advanced. Click on the window of panes that says Show Disc Layout Editor. Navigate to the drive containing the CD you inserted. Drag and drop every file and folder from the CD into the bottom right pane. Then close the Disc Layout Editor with the X in the upper right corner. Press the write button in Build mode and say the image to the HD. Then, go into Write under Mode and burn the image you just made to a rewritable DVD. Test that your laptop can read the disc and if it can, then burn that image you just burned to a DVD-R or DVD+R. Then, repeat for the remaining 2 CD's. The other 2 CD's most likely won't have boot images, but, you never know how they may have them set up.

 

 

I tested the Build mode I outlined above. It worked, though, I did not test the rewritable DVD to see if it boots. I had to quickly write down the last few steps without thorough testing until I rebooted because those write retries and the Verify that failed caused my drive to be unrecognized by Windows until I powered off and rebooted.

[dbminter]

It looks like the Write retries and the Verify failure were a fault of the DVD+RW I was using. Even after fully erasing it, the formerly writing 8x DVD+RW was stuck at 3.3x, a common problem, apparently, when this brand of rewritable media starts to fail, as I've encountered it before in the past.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Creating an ISO of each CD using Read mode (giving you 3 ISO files) and then writing each ISO to a DVD (3 DVDs in total) using Write mode should be all that's required here.

[dbminter]

Yeah, my test that failed was probably linked to a failing DVD+RW than trying to burn the CD image to a DVD medium. That's why I suggested doing the Read and Write method, first. It's simpler, faster, and may in more likelihood than not work.

 

 

I don't know what was up with my CD Test image I tried to burned to a DVD+RW. All it had on it was a folder I386 for test data. I don't think it had an audio track on it or a bootable image on it.

[Rekords]

Thank you so much, I won't get a chance to use my friend's computer until Monday and I will report back then,

 

I really appreciate all the help.