CDRoller is intended to recover data from defective optical media. It supports practically every type of disc, including CD, DVD, and Blu-ray. Luckily, it can even access data from discs that were not properly finalized. Its recovery method is based on attempting to read the raw data on the media, which explains its high rate of success.
The tool has a quite intuitive interface. After you insert the disc, it guides you through the whole process. Once it identifies the original folder structure, the program lets you navigate through it and select the desired files and folders. Unfortunately, although its trial version lets you view the results of the scan and classifies them according to their possibilities of being rescued, it does not allow saving the data.
Besides its basic recovery feature, CDRoller can also do some other things. For example, it lets you burn the recovered info onto a new disc or save it as an ISO image file. Moreover, it can convert recovered VOB files into MPG video and rip audio tracks from discs. Finally, the tool also supports erasing rewritable discs.
All in all, CDRoller is definitely a great solution when it comes to rescuing the data on damaged discs. Unluckily, some benchmarking results available online report this tool as slightly less competent than the leading product in this field. However, from my personal experience, I must admit that it worked perfectly.
v11.8 [Nov 11, 2021]
- Added support of high capacity blu-ray discs : BD-R DL and BD-RE DL (Dual Layer, 50 GB), BD-R TL and BD-RE TL (Triple Layer, 100 GB), BD-R QL and BD-RE QL (Quadruple Layer, 128 GB), Ultra HD Blu-ray (UHD) discs as well.
- The following list of features upgraded to accomodate to the new high capacity optical discs (mentioned above): Recover All / Recover Selected, Drag-and-Drop and File Execution, Save / Resume Recovery, Scan UDF Disc, Examine Sectors / Examine File, Search of disc content, Extract To ISO Image File, View Image, File Properties.
- UDF forced scan updated. Added support of discs created by Windows 10 internal burner. Advanced users and data recovery experts can find useful an opportunity to change (simulate) UDF partition parameters after Unknown CD option has been selected in the forced scan list. For example, if you do not know an exact name of CD/DVD mastering program that created your bad disc, but you have the good one created by the same software, you can apply Test Disc option to the good disc and get the partition parameters first. Then, you run the forced scan on the bad disc (with the Unknown CD option), type the values under UDF Scan parameters dialog and find the lost files, simulating the good disc partition.
- Added ZIP viewer. You can now look into the table of contents of ZIP archive on CD without copying a large ZIP file to your computer. ZIP64 format extensions are also supported. Just select ZIP file in the program window, click the Properties option and look at the ZIP archive tab under the file properties dialog. This option can be applied to another files, created in the ZIP format, such as .ZIPX, .DOCX, .XLXS, .PPTX, .ODT, .ODS, .ODP, .JAR and .WAR files.
- Main program window with empty CD/DVD drives now appears before analysis of inserted disc, with further messages in the status bar. This looks like a proof of normal work of the program if you've inserted a disc before CDRoller and analysis of bad disc requires an additional time.
- Extended Data Recovery updated. Examine Sectors option is now available in the pop-up (context menu) under the Start Window, for the entire disk, logical drive, or selected partition. This allows to search for particular data (content) immediately, without analysis of file system.
- Added support of Flip Video Pocket Cameras with internal flash memories.
- Added Create spare files and Repair file options into the File menu of program window. Spare files contain error-correction data based on Reed-Solomon algorithm that can be used to verify your valuable files have not been damaged and fix them if necessary.
- Installation procedure slightly changed. After installation, the version number will not be displayed in the Start Menu folder name. For example, you will see a simple CDRoller name instead of CDRoller 11.0. This looks like an useful for future upgrades. Also, the setup program now allows to change CDRoller's location if it's required for saving the older version.
- Added Check Update into the Help menu. Using this option, you can check if your current version of CDRoller is up-to-date or a recent update is now available.
- Added an ability to lock CD/DVD drive when analysing the damaged disc. A new check box with the same name is placed onto CDRoller - Start Window. This can be useful when the Windows ejects a disc, interrupting a work of CDRoller.
- Numerous improvements, bugfixes and workarounds added.
