Looking for old backup to CD program

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A client has a collection of CDs that has data backups on them from 03-05 on them which we need to view. However the CD backup program that was used doesn’t show any content on the CDs except a Readme.txt file that says, “Backups are only viewable from within the Backup Program”.

When looking at the writable side of the CD you can tell that they have been recorded to, however Windows can’t see anything but the Readme.txt file

Any idea what backup program would burn a CD like this?

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Put one of those disks in the computer and right click on it’s properties. We’ll need some form of file suffix to determine
what program it is, as a stating point at the very least.
ie .abc

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When looking at the writable side of the CD you can tell that they have been recorded to, however Windows can’t see anything but the Readme.txt file

You are saying that the disk shows space used but no files are visible at all accept the readme.txt?

Do you have your computer set to show ALL files including the (not recommended) system files?

If you couldn’t see that readme file, I would be suspicious that this was burned with an early CD burner that used some kind of proprietary temporary file format and then the disk was never “closed”.

You do have this disk in a cdrw drive not just a cdrom drive?

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The only file on the disk is the readme.txt. If I look at the properties for the disk is shows used space 64KB but zero free space. Filesystem is CDFS.

I have looked at the disks with 3 different DVD-RW drives and they all show the same thing.

All of the systems are set to show all files including hidden and system (anyone know how to hide desktop.ini files on Win7? by the way).

It’s the strangest thing I have seen in a while.

Peter

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That sounds like the backup actually didn’t “work” 5 years ago and the disks were closed with nothing written to them but the readme file……

with no more to go on than this I don’t see any way we can figure out what backup program was used.

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Have you tried checking with the big backup people of 5 years ago, like Mountain? Or maybe there is someone around who remembers the name of the old system. Have you looked at the properties of the Readme.txt file to see if there is any clue there?

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The text of the Readme.txt file is

===========
Backup CD
===========

This disc is a backup CD.

Except for this file the contents of this disc must be
accessed using your backup software.

I can tell that something large was written to both disks and that the readme.txt file was originally created back around 2001 although the label on the CD indicates the backup was for April 2005.

I have asked the client to try to find out who was taking care of the server back then and see if we can contact them.

I was hoping someone might have run across a program that did this sort of silliness.

Peter

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RussB’s suggestion of looking at file properties on that readme may show what program or user created it and give a clue……

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I always break out ISOBuster for these problems. It will extract almost anything using the free functionality.

cheers, Paul

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Some other suggestions in similar threads out on the web:

http://ask.metafilter.com/32468/Unknown-Backup-Format-Just-a-README-file

I also saw a thread in which someone had used NTBackup (or whatever it is called in Windows XP) and the reply said that NTBackup can’t span a backup across different media. This could have led to a failure, i.e., leaving the backup in an incomplete state.

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File props on the readme.txt don’t show anything of interest

The ISOBuster program shows that there is something there but it is hidden.

The other thread that someone found indicated it might be Veritas StorageGuard or a disaster recovery program that came with an HP CD burner many years ago. I will go and check out those options.

Thanks

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