Save information from damaged discs with CD Recovery Toolbox

Optical discs can be vulnerable to scratches and chips, which leads to lost documents and photos. CD Recovery Toolbox is a utility for saving files from damaged discs.

The CD Recovery Toolbox is very easy to use. Double-click on the icon on the desktop and insert the damaged disc. It should detect that the disc is present and ask you to confirm the correct drive. Click on Next and select the folder where it should put the recovered files. This screen estimates the amount of space required to save the files.

The disc is scanned and a summary of all the files and folders that can be recovered is displayed. This allows you to be selective about the amount of space required for the recovery. Once the correct files and folders are selected, click on the Save button.

The progress of the task is shown as it happens, which does give advanced warning of any files that couldn't be recovered. The folder containing the saved files will be opened automatically when the job is finished. It's a shame there's no obvious way to save these results although they can be copied to the clipboard.