I got a DVD, never used with cellophane intact, produced in 1993 on ebay. I thought maybe, since I didn’t get a DRM warning, it predated DRM, and I could just copy it to my hard drive, so I did. Both the copy and the DVD are now corrupted and unplayable. I want to fix the DVD then rip it to my hard drive. Googling gives plenty of suggestions for ripping but none for fixing. Please help if you can. Thanks.
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Problem solved by DVDShrink. Thanks, everyone.
That’s a name I haven’t heard in a very long time.
Unless the drive physically scratched the DVD, it’s not corrupted. However, I’ve had a few discs that I’ve stored carefully for decades that just stopped working for no reason. The discs looked flawless with no signs of damage and they refused to work.
What region is the DVD and is your drive set to the same region?
Alternatively, download this DLL file and place it the same directory as your VLC installation. It will then be able to bypass simple region checks but not all.
Everything is set to region 0. Tried the DLL file and got this, “Your input can’t be opened: VLC is unable to open the MRL ‘file:///D:/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB’. Check the log for details.” Checked VLC using other files, and it’s fine.
Have you tried using MakeMKV to dump the video directly into an mkv file?
Just tried it and got “Error ‘Scsi error - ILLEGAL REQUEST:ILLEGAL MODE FOR THIS TRACK’…”
That can be solved by opening the disc using VLC when makemkv is scanning. VLC will free up the lock.
I’ve been wrestling with something similar for a week lol.
There’s a thread about the error on the makemkv forums. And I’ve personally salvaged discs this way only yesterday.
Also, makemkv can open a DVD as a raw data file. Mine were old TV shows so I was able to pull the individual episodes avoiding the errors or at least getting some if one was corrupt. I saved an additional 3 discs this way.
One last method if you can set the speed of the drive to 1x; rip slow and set lots of retries (5) to maybe give it a slightly better chance. 1x was always the most reliable. Any speed over and you have mixed results.
Lastly, there’s a list on the net about best drives. If you really care and want to throw $100 at it, pick one up. The drives for $20 you find on Amazon won’t read anything a few years old. Theirs lasers are garbage compared to ones manufactured 10+ years ago.
Maybe you can try DVDFab DVD Copy, which may recognize your corrupted DVDs and make a backup copy of it. This tool is good at decrypting and coping old DVD.
Did it play fine to begin with before you ripped it?
Yes, although VLC was the only program able to play it.
It played fine before my attempt to copy it.
It sounds like a physical hardware problem, not software. If you played it once and there is no apparent physical damage to the disc it may be a problem with your disc drive. If you can, try playing it on another piece of hardware like a dedicated DVD player. Also, you could try playing a known good disc (that you don’t mind losing) in your PC drive. This will help narrow down the cause to either the disc or the drive. I’ve had more drive failures over the years than disc failures. The discs that did fail were usually writable discs or obviously damaged. Most of the damage looked liked scratches of the read side or label damage.
Other disc works in same drive.
Does it play on standard DVD players? Is it a pressed copy (silver) or burned (typically purple)?
It sounds like the encryption section has degraded and can’t be read reliably.
It’s silver. I’ve got 3 optical drives and no standard DVD player.
What are you using to rip? I think DVD Decrypter lists the encryption found
I don’t think I can rip until the data is again readable.
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I’ve been ripping DVDs for several years now and have never seen this issue. What program did you use? I thought most retail DVDs were read only once shipped, so I am not sure how you could corrupt it.
Have you tried playing it in another player (like a recent game console or a Blu Ray player)? It could be a corrupted driver for your PC’s disc drive.
Other discs work in same drive. This happened once before, and I used an app called BurnAware to fix and rip the DVD. Apparently it’s part of DRM meanness. BurnAware isn’t working on this one.
I typically use the beta version of MakeMKV on Windows, but I would have no clue what to use on my Debian machine. I hope you are able to resolve your issue, though.
MKV doesn’t get you past DRM anti-copy, i.e. it won’t let you copy a DRM-protected disc into an MKV container, as far as I know.
I can’t find anything for sure on the webpage, but I haven’t run across a DVD in good condition that it can’t rip. I may just be lucky and not own any DRM protected DVDs, though.
I went to the webpage. It says MKV makes ISO backups, so I remembered wrong. In the forum, somebody said they used DVDShrink to make an ISO. I downloaded DVDShrink and ran its media player, which was able to read the corrupted disk. After playing it in DVDShrink, VLC and Pot Player were able to play it, too. Now the first thing on the screen is the DRM warning, which didn’t come up before. Now the DVD is playable and backed up to PC. If you hadn’t been adamant about MKV backups, I’d still have a problem. So TYVM!
FWIW, the same thing happened a couple of years ago with a more contemporary DVD. At the time, I didn’t know I couldn’t just copy it. After using Windows copy function on it, I couldn’t play it. I found a program called BurnAware that fixed and ripped it. BurnAware isn’t able to recover this disc.
